Selena the Vampire Slayer
by Kiana Maria
Summary: Slayer/Watcher romance is strictly prohibited. But sometimes it happens. Set in Cleveland in the '70s. Scary and funny.
1. A Call to Duty

**New York City, 1977**

"And the thing about the dance is: You never get to stop. Every day you wake up, it's the same bloody question that haunts you: 'Is today the day I die?' Death is on your heels, baby, and sooner or later, it's gonna catch you. And part of you wants it. Not only to stop the fear and uncertainty, but because you're just a little bit in love with it. Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp, that look of peace. And part of you is desperate to know: What's it like? Where does it lead you? And now you see, that's the secret. It's not the punch she didn't throw or the kick she didn't land. She merely wanted it. Every Slayer has a death wish. Even you."

* * *

**London, England, 1977**

"The Slayer is dead. The Slayer has been Called."

* * *

**London, England, 1981**

Black umbrellas were raised all around him as the raindrops tapping the pavement became more severe. Adrian St. James crossed Old Brompton Road and walked swiftly, moving in and out of the midday crowd. Checking each address as he went, he determined his destination. Set back from the road, behind a tall, spiked, cast iron fence, was a four-storey brick townhouse. The architecture was 18th-century, the garden paths crumbling to pieces and the ground muddy and wet.

Stopping in front of the building, he wiped the precipitation from his face and noticed the heavy black chains and padlocks that held the gates together. An ancient-looking speaker was set on a box in front of the fence. A button looked so old and disused that Adrian wondered if pressing it would bring any result. He hit the button with his thumb and was surprised to hear a distant bell.

The wind blew harder and the freezing rain battered him from all sides at once. Just as he raised his finger to press the button again, a female voice sounded through crackling static.

"May I help you?"

"I've just been bit by a vampire bat."

A long silence made him think that the speaker had stopped functioning, but then the voice came through again.

"'Vampire bat' is incorrect."

"I was told to say vampire bat."

"Told by whom?"

"Told in the letter I received yesterday."

"It should have read 'sheath-tailed bat.' The pass code was changed some time ago."

"I'm Adrian St. James," he shouted above the traffic. "Yesterday I received a letter telling me to be here this afternoon."

A longer silence followed.

"Come in, Mr. St. James."

The speaker shut off. Adrian looked at the tall iron gates in front of him. "How am I meant to 'come in'?" he muttered to himself. A movement in the garden made him look up. Around the side of the house shuffled a tiny, ancient man, bundled in wraps and carrying an enormous iron key ring. He made his way to the gates, selected a key and attempted to fit it into a lock. "Bloody thing," he said under his breath, dropping that key and choosing another. When the locks were opened and the chains fell away, the old man pulled open one half of the gate and stepped aside, lowering his head as Adrian stepped past.

"Thank you," Adrian said, walking up the path to the house.

He climbed the porch steps. The front doors were heavy and old. A lion's-head knocker was on one door, and a chain hung down by the brick wall. Just as he reached for the bell, the door was opened.

"Come in, sir," said a uniformed maid, standing aside as she held the door for him.

Adrian walked past her into a cavernous oak-paneled hall. An open staircase ascended before him, and an oriental rug lay on the floor. The walls were covered with framed canvases of horses, trees, and dogs.

"May I take your coat?" she asked, closing the door.

"Yes, thank you," he said, taking off his coat as high heels sounded into the hall.

"Mr. St. James, nice to meet you," said the voice he had heard on the speaker. "I'm Eugenia Moore."

She extended her hand, and Adrian shook it as the maid carried his coat away.

"I knew your father at the Academy," she said. "How is he?"

"He's very well. Thank you," said Adrian.

"Come this way."

Adrian walked beside her down the hall. They rounded a corner and walked through a glass-walled solarium full of potted plants. Rain hit the windows, and somewhere in the building a television played. Across another hall was a closed door. Miss Moore rapped on its surface, and a voice said, "Come in."

The door was opened. "Mr. St. James is here, sir."

"Thank you, Eugenia, that will be all."

Miss Moore left and Adrian stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

"Hello, Adrian," the man said, walking around to the front of his desk. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and the furniture was heavy and dark. "I'm Quentin Travers," he said, extending his hand.

"Very nice to meet you, sir," said Adrian.

"Well, have a seat."

Adrian sat in a chair in front of the desk and Travers sat beside him.

"I'll come straight to the point," he said. "The current Slayer is Miss Selena Stoker of Cleveland, Ohio. Clive Brigham was her Watcher, but he was recently killed. The Council has decided that you are to replace Brigham."

The room was silent but for the raindrops on the windows and the crackling logs in the fireplace.

"You are to leave tomorrow, early morning. The house formerly occupied by Brigham is owned by the Council, and you will live there until your tenure is completed. Eugenia has your plane ticket, and she will answer any questions you have. But first, I have Brigham's journals."

Travers left his seat and walked to a table. Adrian noticed a stack of slim, leather-bound books.

"These are being transferred to your possession. Of course, I needn't tell you the importance of not letting them fall into any hands but your own. I suggest you begin as soon as possible, and read quickly. Vital information, you know."

"Yes, sir," said Adrian, rising to take the journals. As Travers handed them to him, he looked into Adrian's eyes. "Uphold the tradition," he said. "The fate of the world now lies in your hands. Make us proud, boy."

"Yes, sir," said Adrian.

* * *

"I don't understand. I don't under_stand_."

Beatrice paced quickly up and down the bedroom floor, holding a wad of Kleenex under her nose. "What's in sodding _America_?"

"It's a family obligation, Bea. I've got to go."

"A family obligation!" she shouted. "That's all you'll tell me?"

"It's all I _can _tell you."

Adrian unlatched a suitcase and laid it on the bed. Beatrice stood in front of the window, glaring at him.

"I thought everything was going fine with us."

"It was. It's not that..." He walked back and forth from the closet to the bed, dumping clothes into his suitcase.

"Why is your bloody family more important than I am?"

"It's not, it's...for your own protection, I can't tell you everything. I wish I could..."

"Do you think I'm stupid?" she shouted. "It's another girl."

"No, it's not another girl." He dumped the journals into the suitcase, latched it and crossed the room to her. He grasped her arms in his hands, and she shoved him away.

"I have to go," he said, walking into the next room. "My mum will be here tomorrow. She'll send the rest of my things on."

He opened the front door of the flat and set down his suitcase. "Can't we at least say a proper goodbye?"

"Damn your proper goodbye, Adrian." As she began to sob again, she threw her Kleenex into the dustbin and grabbed another one out of the box.

"It _is _another girl," she said, crying. "I know it is. And you've not even met her yet, but you'll fall in love with her. I don't know how I know that, but..."

Adrian picked up his suitcase. "Goodbye, Bea," he said, leaving the flat and closing the door behind him.

* * *

It was a short walk down Harcourt Terrace to his parents' house. He climbed the steps and went in the front door. He found his mother in the kitchen, stirring something over the stove.

Adrian leaned into the doorframe. "Well, I'm off."

When she turned to face him, he could see that her eyes were red and teary.

The back door opened and his father walked in.

"You'd better get going," he said.

"I've called a cab."

"Adrian," said his mother, "be careful. No matter what, be careful..."

"All right, Mum. Don't worry."

A car horn honked in the street in front of the house.

"That's the cab."

His mother walked quickly out of the room, sobbing as she went.

"Adrian," said his father, "remember...duty first."

"Yes, Dad," he said, smiling. "I'll remember."

They walked down the hall, and Adrian picked up his suitcase. He opened the front door. The cab was idling by the curb.

"Goodbye, son," said his father, placing one hand on his back. Adrian left the house. He walked down the steps and across the sidewalk to the cab. He opened the door and sat down inside. He pulled the door closed and the cab drove toward Heathrow, and the Slayer.

* * *

The plane leveled in the sky above England. Adrian unsnapped his seatbelt and stretched his legs. The Council had bought two first-class tickets, no doubt so that an empty seat next to him would prevent any curious eyes from seeing the contents of Brigham's journals. He had taken them out of his suitcase, and now they were stacked on the tray in front of him. He glanced out the window. The day was bright, the sky blue. He picked up the first volume, opened it and began to read.

_16 July, 1977_

_Arrived in Cleveland, early morning. Aston Martin waiting at aeroport. Drove to house in Lee Road. Books delivered mid-afternoon. House is within close proximity to Slayer's home in Chelton Road, as well as Yardley High School, which she will be attending when fall term begins. Though a Hellmouth almost certainly exists in Cleveland, its precise location remains unknown. My hypothesis places it under Old Stone Church, the oldest church in the city. Cleveland residents of past years may have known the danger of that precise spot and built a church over it for protection. The church has burned down and been rebuilt twice in its 140-year history. In addition, Yardley High School itself is a possible location. On 4 March, 1908 (Ash Wednesday), the school was devastated by a fire, in which 175 lives were lost. Cleveland itself having been settled on the shores of Lake Erie may be significant, as the Hellmouth could very well be underwater. _

_17 July, 1977 _

_Scouted cemeteries today. Some 25 nearby. Most impressive was Lake View, in Euclid Avenue. It was founded 1869, on 285 acres of land, with over 10,000 burials. Interred include President James A. Garfield (who was assassinated in 1881), John D. Rockefeller, and Eliot Ness. Garfield crypt is a 180-foot-tall, cylinder-shaped sandstone structure. A staircase leads up to the crypt, the outside of which is decorated with bas-relief panels illustrating Garfield's life. Main floor of interior contains life-size statue of Garfield, marble pillars, and stained-glass windows. A chandelier hangs from the dome-shaped ceiling. Floor is of mosaic tiles. Spiral staircase leads to second-floor balcony and outside to observation deck. View of entire grounds, as well as east side of Cleveland to Lake Erie. Will be useful to Slayer on her nightly patrols. Another narrow staircase leads down to basement, where one finds displays of Garfield's personal belongings, and, behind iron gates, the casket itself. Garfield's casket draped with American flag, beside that of his wife, Lucretia. Two urns contain cremated remains of their daughter and son-in-law. _

_Wade Chapel is another structure on cemetery grounds, built in 1901 and overlooking a pond. Its exterior is Greek revival style, its interior designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Mosaics depict prophecies and laws of Old and New Testaments. A leaded-glass window entitled 'The Flight of the Souls' was designed and built by Tiffany himself._

_Memorising the cemetery's acres of winding paths, trees, and graves will be one of the Slayer's first tasks. Enormous statues of Italian marble depicting angels, saints, and Biblical figures are everywhere. Multiple varieties of flowers adorn the grounds, and deer roam the lawn. _

_18 July, 1977_

_Oliver Quimby, several generations removed from Quimby family of Watchers, arrived from London. Mr. Quimby is aware of existence of vampires as well as Slayer, and will be working as my valet. _

_19 July, 1977_

_Drove to Slayer's house and parked down the road. Waited several hours until the girl, 14-year-old Selena Stoker, emerged. Followed discretely as she walked few blocks to public library. Parked and waited. Slayer emerged, books in her arms, only as sun was setting. Left car and followed her across lawn to sidewalk. As I began to approach, Slayer saw something in the shadows and ran. As she disappeared immediately from my sight, a being that had the obvious movement of a vampire in pursuit ran after her. I returned to the car and drove in the direction the Slayer had run. After two blocks, came upon Selena, her back on the sidewalk, the vampire on top of her, his teeth in her neck. Stopped car at kerb and ran to the vampire. A crucifix placed against his skin made him dislodge his teeth and draw back. I thrust the crucifix into his face and he jumped up and ran away. Meanwhile, I attended the Slayer. Her neck was bit and much blood lost. She kept whispering, 'He caught me.'_

_Got first-aid kit from car and packed gauze around her neck. Carried her to the car. Drove back to Lee Road. Carried Slayer into house and laid her down on the sofa. Mr Quimby and I attended her wound. Required seven stitches. Being the Slayer, she should recover from the loss of blood by morning. _

_20 July, 1977 _

_Awake all night. Slayer has just returned to her home. As she lay recovering, I explained to her who I am, and who she is. I told her that modern science had not yet discovered how old the world truly is, or what it was like in the beginning. That the world once belonged to daemons, and that at the dawn of mankind, the daemons were forced from this dimension. The last to leave bit a human, draining its body of blood, and when that human, in turn, drank the blood of the daemon, the first vampire was created. It was, _auxilio ab alto, _a daemon living in a human corpse. But, just as the first vampire was created, was the Slayer created. One girl, in all the world, given the extraordinary strength and skill to hunt the vampires and other daemons, to keep them at bay, and ensure that the world never returns to its hellish origins. When one Slayer dies, the next is immediately Called, and each girl has a Watcher to train and guide her. _

_As the Slayer recovered, she was able to sit up and speak. She recognised that five days ago, her strength, speed, and agility had increased one hundred-fold. She related a dream she had had, of 'this woman, with a big Afro, on a train or something. She looked straight at me and said, "I'm sorry."' I believe the Slayer dreamt of Nikki Wood, her immediate predecessor, who was killed five days ago on a subway car in New York. Whether it was Selena's newfound prescience that caused the dream or, a message from Nikki from beyond the grave, I do not know. _

_Yesterday I believed that a vampire chasing the Slayer on the day I found her was either pure coincidence or, that so many vampires reside in Cleveland that seeing them at sundown is less than surprising. But, when questioned, Selena told me that this is the only daemon she has ever seen, and that she has in fact been seeing him these three years. Several times, when she has been out after dark, the vampire has appeared and made attempts at her life. So far, even before her Slayer strengths came to her, she has been able to outrun him. Last night was the first time he 'caught' her. If I had not been there at that moment, no doubt she would have perished. _

_This cannot be coincidence, that a Potential Slayer would be pursued by the same vampire over a three-year period. Who this vampire is, or was in life, will require immediate investigation. _

_Some concern must be raised for the reason that the Slayer informed me that the first time she saw this vampire, she told several people, including friends and family members. But, in her words: 'No one believed me. They all said I was lying.' One hopes they truly did not believe her, and thought her claims nothing more than childish fantasy. _

_In the morrow, the Slayer will return, and I will begin her training in earnest. _

_21 July, 1977_

_Slayer arrived at house early this morning. I have found her to be an eager student, intelligent, and ready to train. She easily memorised ways to repel vampires - garlic, holy water, and crucifixes - and the ways to kill them: a wooden stake piercing the heart, sunlight, fire, and decapitation. _

_Wanted to make certain she understood the importance of not allowing anyone to discover her true identity. If one person knows, a million might someday know. If a million people know, a million vampires could know. The entire Slayer/Watcher enterprise which, thrives in secrecy would, be placed in jeopardy. _

_I trust that the Slayer will not betray the confidence. _

_4 August, 1977 _

_First night hunting at cemetery. I chose Acacia Memorial Park, in Mayfield Heights, rather than Lake View. No doubt Lake View is bursting with vampires each night, and a more subdued location was needed for Slayer's first outing. _

_Drove to graveyard, supplies ready. Slayer and I packed our clothing with stakes, and she has taken to wearing a cross-shaped necklace for protection. Had barely left the car when a rustling in the grass attracted our attention, and we were immediately accosted by the same vampire who had chased Selena the day I met her. Slayer began to run, and I had to physically stop her to make her face the daemon. As she held her stake ready, her arm shook with fear. I looked into the vampire's face and saw something familiar. I can't say for certain, given that it was in its aroused state but, I believe I knew the man at some point. After we arrived home at dawn, I realised who it must be. Basil Smythe, a member of the Watchers Council, disappeared and was presumed dead (although his body was never found) some three years back. If Smythe was indeed killed by a vampire and turned, this is a most dangerous situation. a vampire will retain the memories and knowledge of the person he once was. One with the awareness of a member of the Council, including knowledge of every Potential Slayer the world over, cannot be destroyed quickly enough. _

_The Slayer held a cross in the vampire's face, and he fled. Despite my urging, she was too afraid to chase him. _

_5 August, 1977_

_The Slayer has killed her first daemon, though it was not the one who had been pursuing her. At Holy Cross Cemetery, we came upon a lone vampire, most likely very old but an adolescent when he was turned. The Slayer pursued him, knocked him to the ground, jumped on top of him, and thrust her stake into his chest. Though she missed the heart with her first attempt, the vampire was immobilised with pain, and she was able to pull another stake from her trousers and find the heart on her second try. The Slayer fell to the ground when the body turned to dust. She was quite shaken, but also seemed exhilarated. _

_11 August, 1977 _

_Slayer has now staked fourteen vampires, an average of more than two per night. Tonight we returned to Acacia Memorial Park, and again found the vampire who has chased her these last three years. No doubt it is Smythe. Tonight he spoke to me, and he knew me by name. Taunting me, he described how he was killed and turned. Walking in London one rainy night, he heard a woman's cry for help. Running down an alleyway, he came upon a group of vampires feeding. The woman was beyond saving, and Smythe was no match for so many. They fed on him, and he in turn drank the blood of his sire. Three days later he awoke under a bridge, believing, as all newly-turned vampires do, that something wonderful had happened to him. Knowing that when the current Slayer died, Selena Stoker would most likely be Called, he immediately made his way to Cleveland, and over the past three years has been terrorising the vulnerable girl. He could easily have killed her, but he chose not to, wanting to wait until she was Called, so he could go down in the books as a vampire who killed a Slayer. It is a great tragedy that a fine man like Smythe, from an old family of Watchers, has met this tragic end. _

_Once more, he escaped. _

_20 August, 1977 _

_Slayer continues to study and train during the day, and hunt at night. _

_21 August, 1977 _

_It is sometimes difficult to pull the Slayer away from the books for martial arts training. She seems to immediately memorise everything she reads; when I quiz her on the contents of a book she sometimes knows it better than I. _

_28 August, 1977 _

_First night at Lake View Cemetery. Intended this to be Slayer's first night out without me, but ended up going along, at her insistence. Slayer has a profound fear of Smythe. One can only imagine the traumatising effect he has had on the young girl. And, although it was best for security purposes, to tell the truth and not be believed must have harmed her psyche doubly so. _

_1 September, 1977 _

_Slayer continues to hunt each night. She has grown expert at staking vampires. I have stopped counting her kills, but it is sometimes well over a dozen a night. _

_4 September, 1977_

_School term begins tomorrow. Slayer will be in ninth grade, at Yardley High School. We have worked out a schedule that will allow her to attend school as well as perform her duties as Slayer. The school day ends at 2.30 pm. Selena will then walk to Lee Road, and begin the day's training. She will go home for supper, and at dusk will go out to hunt. At 3 am she will return home for a few hours' sleep. On Friday and Saturday nights, when vampires tend to prey at social gathering spots such as theatres and shopping centres, the Slayer will make rounds of these places. Other nights, she will patrol cemeteries. _

_Any extracurricular activities will, of course, be forbidden, as will any close friendships. _


	2. Personal Demons

**Cleveland, Ohio, 1977**

She had been born. She had made her way out of the womb 14-and-a-half years ago, but this July she had been born.

When junior high ended and summer began, Selena had wanted something. She had wanted something big, and important...she had wanted to become a different person, she had wanted her life to change. And just like the world revolved around the sun, and her body had, seemingly miraculously, grown to an adult's, her life had changed. Now, on the first day of school, she felt how different everything was. Not only was she stronger, faster, and more alert...but she had become who she was. If the other kids at school new how truly special she was, if her family knew...but she had to keep it a secret. She was good at keeping secrets. But it didn't matter, because it was her destiny. She was, perhaps, the most important person in the world.

And, just like everything she now was could be summed up in one word, _Slayer_, all of the comfort and safety she now felt could be summed up in one name. Clive Brigham, her Watcher, was the first grown-up man who had ever put his arm around her shoulders or kissed the top of her head. He didn't try anything sexual or loudly and suddenly proclaim that he would never try anything sexual, that's not what he had in mind at all, and why did you bring up the subject? She could look into his eyes without being embarrassed, and he had told her, in the British accent that she now associated with strength, power, knowledge, and love: "You're the most important thing in the world to me."

After school, she walked to his house. She had been walking down Lee Road her entire life, looking at the mansions and wondering if she would ever see any of them from the inside. If she had known then what that one address would someday mean to her...but she couldn't have known. Clive's house was a three-storey Tudor-style, and its front hall (or "_foy-yay"_) was twice the size of Selena's living room. The "parlor" led to a library, where shelves were lined with hundreds of books and a fire always burned. The entire basement had been made into a Slayer-training room, complete with a punching bag, exercise mats, and a large collection of very sharp weapons. On the top floor of the house were three bedrooms, one for Clive and Oliver, one in case Selena should ever need some sleep while she was there, and one "in case Mummy comes to visit." Clive and Ollie seemed to think that a hilarious joke, but Selena wasn't quite sure she got it.

The front door was unlocked. Selena walked in and put down her books. "Hello, dear," Clive said, walking into the room with a book in one hand and a cuppa tea in the other. "Ready for training?"

She nodded and went across the foyer to the powder room, tucked under the staircase. She looked in the mirror. She rarely wore anything anymore but the one pair of bib overalls she owned, with a T-shirt underneath, and Nike running shoes. Parting her long brown hair down the center, she arranged it into two huge buns, one on each side of her head, covering her ears. She stepped back into the foyer and found Clive waiting by the basement door.

"I've informed the Council about Smythe," he said, "They do feel that we should make is destruction our first priority. I'd like to go to Maple Shade tonight. He may well be there, since we haven't seen him at Lake View in days."

He held open the basement door. Selena waited.

"Oh, very well," he said. "May the force be with you."

She descended the basement stairs and he followed.

* * *

That night, Clive drove her to Maple Shade Cemetery. In the car, Selena fiddled nervously with her crossbow, loading and unloading it over and over again. Her clothes were packed with stakes.

He drove through the entry gate and down a paved path. Acres of trees, and neat rows of graves, spread before them. Her window was rolled down, and when the motor was turned off, Selena heard the call of an owl.

"Do you think he'll be here tonight?" she asked.

"I hope he will," Clive said. "The sooner we rid ourselves of Basil Smythe, the better."

Selena loaded her crossbow again, looking down into her lap. The monster that had chased her for the last three years now had a name. It wasn't just a thing, it was called a vampire, and in life its name had been Basil Smythe. And she wasn't lying, or crazy. But now she wasn't running from it. She was actually out in a cemetery, at night, hunting the thing down. Wind blew into the car, causing her to shiver.

"What's wrong, dear?" asked Clive.

"I can't," she said, so quietly that she was surprised he had heard. "I can't. It's too scary, I can't."

"Well, you must. Duty first, you know."

She shook her head back and forth as tears rolled down her face. "No, I can't. I can't stand it anymore. It's too scary, I can't..."

"Selena," he said, "if I'd known what you've been going through, I would've come sooner."

She wiped her hands over her face.

"You don't have to be scared anymore. You're the Slayer now. Vampires are afraid of _you_."

"But he's too fast..."

"It's true he has an advantage that most of them don't. He knows the ins and outs of Slayer training, and may be able to predict your movements to some extent. But he certainly won't be the first vampire you've killed. If you can face a mob of eight, you should be able to take out one alone."

A few nights ago, at Lake View, Selena had found herself surrounded by eight vampires who had probably been a gang of bikers before they died. Just before panic could find its way in, she had realized that all she had to do was stake a vampire, eight times. She had dusted them, easily, one by one.

"Come on, then, let's have a go," Clive said, opening his door. Selena left the car, strapped her crossbow onto her back, and followed him across the grass to the tombstones.

They walked among the graves, listening, but the only sounds they heard were birds and rabbits running through the grass. Then, from yards behind, Selena heard a noise. She turned, and Clive turned after her. At first, she saw nothing, but then the vampire came. Selena instantly recognized him from his ragged suit and peculiar movements. He saw them and ran across the grass.

Selena turned to flee. Clive grabbed her arm, hurting her with his strongly clasped fingers. "No, dear," he said. "Don't run."

The vampire came closer and closer.

"You can do this," Clive said. "And you must do it, for your safety and mine."

She held her stake out before her and Clive let go of her arm. The vampire halted, close enough for Selena to hear the grunts of his heavy breathing, see his yellow eyes and blood-filled face. His fangs shone in the moonlight.

"Hello, Basil," said Clive.

"Evening, Brigham," the vampire said. "Is this your girl?"

"Yes," said her Watcher. "And she's ready for you."

Smythe took a few steps forward, towering over Selena. She dropped her stake and grabbed her crossbow, pulling it over her shoulder. Its point aimed up, right at the vampire's heart.

Smythe didn't move.

Selena's finger found the trigger, and she fired.

Smythe dove to the ground. The crossbow bolt sailed over his head, and landed in the grass. The vampire was at her feet, grabbing at her ankles. She kicked him away. She dropped her crossbow. It clattered onto the ground, and she ran.

"Selena, no!"

Clive's shout echoed through the graveyard. Selena dodged tombstones as she ran across the grass. She heard a car door slam, then heard the motor start. She ran through trees, across the street, and didn't stop until she was home.

* * *

In the basement of her house, next to the washer and dryer, was a narrow closet. When she had become the Slayer and found out it would be necessary to come and go secretly, Selena had dragged her mattress downstairs. It just fit into the closet, and she had laid it on the concrete floor and spread blankets on top of it. Her clothes were in two piles, one very dirty and one relatively clean. Some books she had borrowed from Clive were stacked in a corner, and she had an alarm clock. Wooden stakes jammed under the door prevented it from opening.

A small window was high on the wall. Each night, as the sun went down, Selena opened the window, pulled herself up, and squeezed through until she was on her hands and knees in the driveway. She then walked to Clive's house, and they went out to hunt.

In the morning, she awoke. She had left the window open when she had come home the night before, crying and terrified of Smythe. She had climbed inside, dropped down on the mattress, and sobbed until she fell asleep.

Now, as she dressed herself, she felt guilty and failed. She dreaded having to see Clive that afternoon, wondered if Smythe would haunt her for the rest of her life, and if he would be the one in whose hands she would finally perish.

"I am _sorry_, Tabby."

She heard her mother's voice as she climbed the stairs.

"I can't go like this! Oh my God! Oh my _God!_"

The shouts were coming from the bathroom. Selena walked through the kitchen and knew that her oldest brother had recently been there. She wondered if there was anyone else, anywhere else on earth, who knew what effect ten years of not bathing had. Amos's smell, like burning garbage, lingered in the room, and his filthy black hand prints covered the refrigerator door.

"_Do _something! _Do something!_"

"It's a humid day, Tabby. That's why your hair won't curl. It will probably rain this afternoon."

The bathroom door was closed. Selena tried to turn the handle, but it was locked. Her sister's screams had become inarticulate, wordless shouts.

She knocked on the door. Nothing happened. She knocked again, and it flew open. Her sister stomped past her, her eyes red, her hair straight, and tears running down her face.

"Can I go?" Selena asked her mother.

Her mother was picking up tubes of makeup, used Kleenex, toothpaste, and Tabby's dirty underwear from the bathroom sink.

"Can I go?"

Tabby stomped past her again, and began brushing her hair while looking in the mirror.

"I have to go to the bathroom."

Her mother finally looked at her. "It's not like you have to go _really bad _or anything, right?"

Tabby turned away from the mirror. She looked at Selena, waiting for a response, and Selena knew she would have to wait until she got to school.

She went to the kitchen to wash her face. One of the cats lay on the windowsill and the other was in a sunbeam, on a chair. She brushed her teeth and spit into the sink as Sniffy's wagging tail beat against her legs. She patted the top of his doggy head, found her schoolbooks, and left the house.

The day was cloudy and the night would be dark. Her mother and her sister emerged from the front door after her, and, as Selena walked across the grass to the sidewalk, the two of them climbed into the car. Selena crossed the street as her mother backed out of the driveway and sped in the opposite direction.

* * *

She always heard things in the morning. She always heard that someone was going to ask someone out, or someone was going to beat someone up, or someone thought someone was pregnant. She heard these things as she made her way through the crowded halls and she wondered what it would be like to have a life outside of school and home and fighting demons. But today she heard something different. She heard that Leslie Endicott was missing. She wasn't at home, she hadn't been to school in days, and all of her boyfriends had actually been questioned by the police. As she sat down in her algebra class, Selena listened to the theories and the rumors.

The bell rang and Mrs. Teague walked into the room. Everyone passed up their homework. Selena took the papers from the girl behind her and passed them to the girl in front of her. Her own homework had not been done, and she realized she had left her algebra book at Clive's house. She looked to the front of the room, where Mrs. Teague was writing that day's assignment on the board.

"Leslie's a stoner. She probably died of a drug overdose."

"She probably just ran off somewhere."

"Maybe she's going to hitchhike to L.A."

"Yeah," a guy laughed, "maybe ten years from now we'll see her in the movies."

Selena was startled out of her thoughts by Mrs. Teague, who had walked down the aisle and was now looming over her, with her hands on her hips. "Where is your homework?" she demanded.

The entire class was silent, looking at Selena. She could feel them all smirking as she looked down at her desk. "I didn't have time," she muttered.

"There were seventeen hours between the time you left school yesterday and the time you arrived here this morning. You only needed eight hours of sleep and one hour for dinner. So what happened to the other eight hours?"

"I don't know," said Selena.

"And where is your book?"

"I left it at home."

"Well, at least you _intended _to do your work."

Mrs. Teague stalked back up the aisle as the class laughed. Selena looked at the clock.

* * *

Droplets of rain tapped her face as she walked the few blocks to Clive's house. It was the first time she had ever dreaded going inside. She walked in and saw him, standing in the parlor doorway. She put down her books on the table in the foyer.

He was silent for a moment. Then, "I trust you made it home last night?"

She nodded her head.

"Well, I barely got into the car," he said. "Smythe almost got me. And you left your crossbow at the cemetery."

She didn't know what to say.

"Is the same thing going to happen again tonight?"

She looked down at the floor. She shrugged.

"Well, it had better not. If you – "

Selena felt tears run down her face. She held her hands over her eyes as she began to sob.

Clive crossed the floor to her. "Darling…," he said. He put his hands on her shoulders. "It's all right." She leaned forward, against his chest, and he patted her while she cried.

"I wouldn't take you out to hunt if you weren't ready. I know you can handle Smythe. But every day that he isn't destroyed only compounds the danger."

Selena nodded, her face against the vest of his three-piece suit.

"Now," he said, "we'll train till dark, then we'll go out. And tonight we'll get him. Right?"

Selena nodded, rubbing her nose.

"I went back to Maple Shade this morning," he said, as she followed him down the hall. "I retrieved your crossbow. It was in need of some repair."

As Clive opened the basement door, Selena looked into the kitchen and saw Oliver, standing near the stove.

"Oh my, have we been rumbled?"

"Honestly, Ollie," said Clive. Selena followed her Watcher down the stairs.

* * *

That night, they drove back to Maple Shade. Clive parked the car as soon as it was through the gate. The motor hummed to silence.

"You've got your stakes," he said. "You've got your crossbow. You're more than ready for this. So I'm leaving you here."

"No," she said. "I can't..."

"Yes," he said, "you can. You've been slaying for two months now and you've not been out by yourself. Most Slayers go out alone long before this. I'm tired of having to answer to the Council."

"He'll kill me."

"He won't. Now, I'm going back to the house. And I don't want to see you again until Smythe has been destroyed."

Selena didn't move. Clive reached across her and unlatched her door. He pushed it open.

"Now go," he said. "Remember who you are. Keep your weapons ready. You can do this."

Selena's legs were shaking as she stepped onto the ground. She strapped her crossbow to her back and closed the car door. The motor started, and Clive turned the car in a semi-circle and drove through the gate.

She looked around. Slayers could see very well in the dark, and their hearing was sharper than others'. But there was nothing to see. With a stake in her hand and her crossbow on her back, Selena walked down the cemetery path.

He didn't want to see her again until Smythe had been destroyed. But what if she couldn't even find him? If he wasn't at Maple Shade that night, where would she go?

Then, she heard something. Footsteps across dry, dead leaves. Selena looked over her shoulder, then spun around. A girl walked toward her, out of a grove of trees.

"Hey," she said. "I know you from school."

"What are you doing here?" Selena asked.

"I live here now," Leslie said. She stepped forward, and Selena saw that her face was that of a demon, erect with blood.

"What's your name again?"

"Selena Stoker," said the Slayer.

"Oh, that's right."

"How did this happen to you?" she asked.

Leslie sat down on top of a tombstone. "I was out one night, and I met this guy," she said. "An old guy, with like an English accent. He kept talking to me, and he asked me if I went to Yardley, which was far out. And I was just sort of walking away from him, and then he _bit _me. Then I woke up in a cemetery."

"Did he tell you what his name was?"

"Yeah," Leslie said. "Basil. Like the herb, I guess."

"Is he here now?"

"No. Why, do you want him to bite you too?"

Selena dropped her stake into her pocket. "I don't know," she said. "What did it feel like?"

"It hurt," said Leslie. Her hair hung down into her eyes, and she wore tight jeans and a baseball shirt with a Led Zeppelin iron-on patch. "But it was like a good hurt, you know? And now it's like…I'm free. I don't have to put up with my mom's shit anymore. I stay out all night, and all I want is blood. Nothing else matters to me."

"Everyone's talking about you at school. Your mom thinks you were kidnapped or something."

Leslie laughed. "I wonder how long it was before she noticed I was gone."

"Don't you miss her?"

"No, man, I don't."

Suddenly, Leslie's face shrunk back to normal. Her skin was white, iridescent, and blue veins protruded from her face and hands.

Selena let her crossbow slide from her shoulder to the ground. "Can you take me to that guy?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Leslie. "Let's go."

They left Maple Shade and walked north, down the sidewalk. Though it was dark, it wasn't late. Cars drove down the street, and kids still played in a few front yards. After several blocks, Selena knew where they were going.

The gates were locked at Lake View Cemetery. The low concrete wall that supported the eight-foot iron fence surrounded the entire 285 acres. "Come on," said Leslie, "I know a good place to get in."

Selena followed Leslie down the sidewalk. They turned the corner onto Mayfield Road. Trees grew taller than the fence, and blocked their view inside the grounds. "Can you climb?" asked Leslie.

"Like a monkey."

"Well, come on."

Leslie held onto the iron bars and hoisted herself onto the low concrete ledge. Her arms were thin and sickly, but she pulled herself up. Selena followed easily, climbing the fence and vaulting over while Leslie struggled with the spikes at the top. Selena found a grassy spot and leaped to the ground. Leslie jumped after her, landing on her hands and knees.

"Do you know where he'll be?"

"He'll find us," said Leslie. "Just walk."

They walked down a grassy slope, until they came to what Selena and Clive called "The Dugouts," a row of crypts dug into a hillside. Their doors were made of stone, but the bodies inside were buried in earth. Leslie sat down on the ground, then lay back and stretched.

"He asked you if you went to Yardley?" Selena asked.

"Yeah. I thought he was some old pervert."

"No, he's a vampire."

Leslie sat up. "And you're the Vampire Slayer."

Selena stepped back, pulling her stake from her pocket.

Leslie laughed. "I knew all along," she said. "Basil knows everything about you. He told me to wait for you at Maple Shade tonight, and lead you here. He's going to kill you."

The trees rustled. Selena spun around, her stake raised. Out of the darkness rushed the vampire. Basil Smythe ran toward Selena. She held her stake ready. She remembered what Clive had told her. Then, she ran.

She ran without thinking, without direction. She dodged tombstones and trees. Out of the darkness ahead of her shone Wade Chapel, its white pillars reflecting the moonlight. As she circled the edge of the pond, she stopped running. She looked back. She saw nothing.

She caught her breath. A cool autumn breeze created waves in the water. She turned, and was on the ground.

Her mouth had been hit, and she could taste blood. Her head had collided with the ground, hard. She looked above her, into the darkness. Leslie stood over her, holding a small oak branch.

"Here she is!" Leslie shouted.

Selena listened, but the rushing noise of Smythe did not come. She jumped to her feet.

"What's the rest of the plan?" she shouted.

"What?" said Leslie.

"Is he going to turn me, or just kill me?"

"_Turn _you?" she asked. "Why would he turn _you_?"

Selena walked backwards until she felt the cool marble of the chapel wall against her bare arms. With her back protected, she looked at Leslie. "A Slayer turned into a vampire," she said. "Do you know how dangerous that would be?"

"I hate people like you," Leslie said.

"People like me? Slayers?"

"No…yes! 'Cause you're probably all like that!"

"Like what?"

"Stuck up!" proclaimed the other girl. "I can't stand people who think they are the shit. You think the whole world depends on you."

Leslie was throwing her arms up into the air as she talked, and her vamp face had returned. "Basil told me you call yourself 'The Chosen One.' He told me that your Watcher is constantly going, 'Oh, you're so special. Oh, you're the greatest person in the world.' Well, you don't know anything!"

Selena was trembling, and tried to find words to quell the vampire. "I wish I could have saved you, Leslie. I should have tried harder - "

"God!" she screamed. "That is just the kind of shit that pisses me off! I don't need _you _to save me. Basil's the one who saved me. And now I'm going to live forever. And you're _just a mortal!"_

Leslie had walked forward, and now stood in front of Selena.

"You think _you're _special?"

She held the oak branch in both hands, like a baseball bat.

"Well, this is for you!"

She swung the heavy branch. It came toward her face. Selena caught it in both hands.

She propelled the branch back toward the vampire, hitting Leslie across the face and knocking her to the ground.

Before she could sit up or say anything, Selena hit her again. And again, across her face. The oak branch was jagged on one end, and, turning it in her hand, Selena brought it down into the vampire's heart. Leslie Endicott turned to dust.

"Nice work."

Selena spun around. Smythe stood on the steps of Wade Chapel. Overcome with emotion, she began to cry.

"Don't do that," he said. "It only hurts for a bit." He walked slowly toward her.

"Are you going to kill me?" asked Selena.

"No," he said. "I'm going to bring you to life."

He was next to her. He could do anything he wanted. He took her arm in his cold fingers. And Selena wondered if she was about to die. Then she thought about everyone she knew, and she hated them. She hated them because they had never felt the cold grasp of a monster's fingers on their arms. They had never done their duty in a cemetery, alone at night, when all they wanted was to go home and go to sleep. She hated them because they would never feel the pain that she felt.

And then she understood her power. She understood why. She understood that all the pain caused all the strength. And, as Basil Smythe's fangs found her neck, Selena pushed him away. He stumbled back, surprised. And she pulled another stake from her pocket and thrust it into his heart.

* * *

_21 September, 1977 _

_Smythe has been destroyed. The Slayer has done well. _


	3. Make a Wish

**Cleveland, Ohio, 1978**

Since becoming the Slayer the year before, Selena lived in the night hours, needing only three hours of early-morning sleep, and somnambulated through school. But at the end of each day, in Mr. Carter's tenth-grade English class, she suddenly found herself wide awake. In English, she sat behind Grant Marzano. Only the length of her desk was between his body and hers, and her knees were precariously close to the warmth of him. Today he wore a light-blue western-style shirt, and his honey-blond hair cascaded past his shoulders. Of course, he could never know how she felt. She wasn't exactly at his level of social acceptability, and Slayers weren't allowed to date anyway.

"Virgin. Virgin. Non-virgin. Virgin. Hard to say, but I'd guess virgin."

Kurt Woods sat in the back of the room, amusing everyone with his antics. It was his creative way of passing the time and communicating to everyone that he'd actually been laid.

"Virgin, virgin..."

"Miss Stoker?"

Selena looked up. Mr. Carter sat at his desk, holding her essay, and crooking his finger at her. She got up from her desk and walked to the front of the room.

"What _is_ this word?" he asked, pointing to the middle of the paper.

Oliver had done her homework for her. She didn't always have time for Slayer-duties _and _schoolwork, and he could duplicate her handwriting very well. She read the sentence Mr. Carter pointed to.

_Holden Caulfield is nothing but a spoilt American toff who would benefit greatly from a good caning. _

Then, further down the page: _Bloody teenage angst, have another cheeseburger and, Bob's your uncle. _

Mr. Carter's eyebrows lowered and he looked at her as if to say, "_Toff?"_

"It's slang," she explained.

He shook his head back and forth as if he had never been more disappointed in his life.

The bell rang, and Selena went back to her desk to gather her books. Grant Marzano's arm slightly brushed against hers as everyone squeezed past each other to the door, and she felt her blood rush with excitement. In the hallway, she lost sight of him. She stepped down the crowded staircase to the first floor and made her way to her locker. Just as she reached for the lock, Tom Leith and Beth Meeker crashed into the metal door, their arms wrapped around each other and their tongues licking the insides of each other's mouths. Selena's arm was pinned, immobilized to the wall of lockers, and they were so close that she could feel their hot breath on her face. She waited for them to move, and then opened her locker.

It was Friday afternoon, and autumn leaves cascaded to the ground. She walked the few blocks to Clive's house. She went in and found him in the front parlor, on the phone.

"Yes, I understand…it was a mistake…."

A few days earlier, Selena had attempted to kill a rather ferocious vampire using a spell Clive had taught her, but she had screwed it up so badly that she wasn't even sure how she had screwed it up. The vampire had escaped, and apparently the Council had found out, by that mysterious method the Council used to find out things, and had called Clive to reprimand him.

"You're right…won't happen again…."

Clive bent over the table for a pad of paper and a pen, when Oliver walked into the room, wearing impossibly tight pants and a shirt open to his stomach. He slapped Clive, playfully, on his ass.

The phone was hung up, and Clive glared at Ollie. "Honestly," was all he said.

"Do you want me to go to the drive-in tonight?" Selena asked.

"Yes, do," said Clive. "If there's no activity at Sunset, go to Starlite, and I'd also like you to do Public Square."

She had three hours before dusk. She went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Between plates of roast potatoes and scones, she found some chocolate thingy and cut herself a slice. She wandered back through the parlor to the library. Plucking a book from a shelf, she made herself comfortable in one of the Windsor chairs near the fireplace.

She opened the book and skimmed its table of contents while she snacked. Chapter twelve was titled: "The Sexual Habits of Vampires." Holding the book close to her body, in case someone walked into the room, she turned to page 1013 and began to read.

She had known that vampires could and did have sex, though blood did not flow through their bodies. And she had seen enough male vamps that eschewed clothing to know that when their foreheads got big their other part did too. They couldn't get pregnant or get anyone pregnant, nor could they carry any venereal disease.

Oliver turned the vacuum cleaner on in the other room, which apparently was one of his duties as Clive's "valet." The grandfather clock in the corner struck three, and Selena went down to the basement to train.

* * *

"Don't you _miss _Daniel?"

Walking into the kitchen, she paused by the stove.

"No. No, I don't."

"You mean you don't miss him _at all?"_

Her mother stood over the stove, stirring spaghetti sauce in two frying pans. She had carried the bird cage downstairs and placed it on the kitchen table, and feathers cascaded between the bars to the floor as Miss Bianca chirped and flew to a different perch.

"So you're mad at Daniel for moving, and instead of saying that you have to twist it around and say you have some reason to be mad at _me_."

"Well you don't even _miss _him!"

She opened the basement door and found Amos, on the top step, standing on his knees.

"What are you and Mob talking abou?"

"Nothing. Move."

"I wanna know what you and Mob are talking abou."

"We're talking about how I don't miss Daniel. Move."

"I know you said some-a you didn't want me to hear."

"No, I didn't. Let me go downstairs."

"Just let her go downstairs, Amos," Mom said.

He stood, his stench carrying through the room, and walked to the stove.

"Tell me what you and A-lena are talking abou." He grabbed his mother's arm in one hand.

"Move, Amos," Mom said. "I'm just trying to cook dinner."

"Well, you're not _gonna _cook dinner."

Shoving her away from the stove, he grabbed both pans of spaghetti sauce, one in each hand. "Amos, no! No!" Mom screamed, as Selena looked on in disbelief.

"You can't take that downstairs! We don't have anything else to eat tonight!"

The boiling tomato sauce sloshed out of the pan and landed on the floor as he carried it to the basement steps.

"Well, there goes dinner," Mom said, as they listened to his steps descend.

* * *

Selena went down to the basement, holding her breath. Her brother's smell mingled with the smell of food and made her sick to her stomach. Amos sat on the concrete floor, guarding the two frying pans in front of him. Piles of envelopes were shoved into nooks in the ceiling. Each day, Amos took the mail from the box, saying he had to "censor" it. Mom waited till he wasn't looking and tried to take it from his hiding spots, one envelope at a time. She then hid it somewhere else and waited till he wasn't looking again to read it, but often forgot where it was. When Selena thought about all the piles of mail that didn't get opened for months, all the bills that were hidden all over the house, she thought she would go insane.

She went into her closet and shut the door. She changed her clothes, and then climbed out the window.

* * *

The weekend was beginning, and the streets were filled with loud joviality. Street lamps came on as Selena walked down the sidewalk.

A long line of cars idled in the street outside Sunset Drive-In Theater. A huge movie screen loomed in the distance, and a tall chain-link fence surrounded the ten acres of gravel. The Slayer crossed the street and rounded the block. She arrived at an alley and walked into the darkness. She passed two smelly dumpsters, and a possum waddled across her path.

She climbed the tall fence and vaulted over its spiky top, landing in the gravel on her hands and knees. She was behind the movie screen, in the dark. She walked around the screen and saw the rows and rows of parked cars. Bright lights lit a concession stand, where people milled around. Selena walked to it.

She bought a soda and stood near the fence, sucking on the straw. The smell of popcorn and funnel cake was strong. On the screen, a giant tomato pinned a screaming man against a garage door.

"Are you here by yourself?"

She looked to her right. He was tall, dressed well, and cute – sort of Grant Marzano meets John Travolta. His iridescent skin shone in the moonlight.

"No, I came with my friend and her boyfriend."

"So you're more or less here by yourself."

He walked to her side. "Do you want to watch the movie with me?"

Selena smiled and nodded. Dropping her cup into a trash can, she followed him across the gravel.

His car - probably stolen (as vampires acquired things by killing people and taking their possessions) - was a '60s Mustang, one of the few models Selena could recognize. He opened the passenger door, moved up the front seat, and stood back, gesturing for her to climb inside.

She ducked under the roof and slid across the leather seat. He climbed in after her, pulling the door closed. She looked through the windshield, at the movie. The vampire put his arm around her.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Fifteen."

He smiled. "Tasty."

His face changed, and his teeth grew longer. As he closed in on her neck, Selena pulled a stake from her jacket pocket. She felt his breath on her skin. She jabbed the stake into his heart, and saw an expression of shock come into his eyes before his body disintegrated.

She opened the door and left the car. Shaking the vampire dust from her clothes, she walked through the rows of cars, back around the screen, and climbed back over the fence.

Public Square was four city blocks where Superior Avenue dissected Ontario Street. On one corner was the city's only skyscraper, on another was Old Stone Church, and on another was Higbee's, where Selena used to go shopping before she became the Slayer and stopped going shopping at all. She crossed the street when the light changed and walked into the grassy park in the center of the square.

A black marble statue of Moses Cleaveland himself loomed above her head. Selena ambled down a concrete path. She came to a tree and leaned back, trying to look helpless and pulling the zipper of her jacket up and down.

"Look at that."

There were three of them, a guy and two girls. They looked about her age but they were, of course, much older.

"Can you help me?" she asked. "I'm kinda lost."

"Of course we can help you, Madame," the guy said, and the girls laughed. He sauntered to her side. "Where do you need to be?"

"I'm looking for Kipling Street," she said. "My friend lives there."

"That's not too far from here," he said. "We can show you. Follow us."

She followed them out of the park and across the street. She knew where Kipling was, of course, and knew they were walking in the opposite direction. She felt her stake poke her leg through her jeans pocket.

"Where do you guys go to school?" she asked.

"Yardley," one of the girls said. "Class of '38."

The three of them laughed and Selena pretended to look confused.

The street they walked down was empty and dark. They passed liquor stores with bars on the windows and a boarded-up gas station that was covered in graffiti. She heard a train rumble in the distance.

Selena followed the three vampires into a dark alley. Suddenly, they stopped. They spun around to face her, and she saw their true faces.

"I'm gonna turn her," the guy said.

_"Her?"_ both girls shouted.

The Slayer reached into her pocket.

The male vampire ran toward her, his mouth open and his eyes yellow. When he was close, Selena grasped his stomach with one hand and his chest with the other, and threw him over her head. He landed on the ground with a thud. She pulled her stake from her pocket and drove it into the left side of his back.

Standing, she looked at the two girls. Saliva ran from their open mouths, and one of them hissed. Selena ran forward.

When she was close enough, she moved to stake the demon. But the girl grabbed her arm, pulling it straight, and threw her to the ground. Her face landed in a greasy puddle, and a foot was in her back. "I'm gonna kill her!" the girl shouted.

She grabbed Selena's face in her cold, dirty hands, and yanked back her neck. Selena lost her breath. She reached up, and felt pieces of long, scraggly hair. She found the vampire's face and dug her nails into its wrinkled forehead. The girl screamed and loosened her grip. Selena let go and struggled out from under her foot.

She punched one girl in the face and drove her stake into her heart. The other one ran toward her, and she dusted her easily.

She looked down at her stomach. Her jacket was open, and her shirt was torn. Something was stuck into her flesh. She grasped it and pulled it out, and saw that it was a jagged piece of a broken chain-link fence. The dark liquid that seeped from her stomach spread. She dropped the sharp piece of fence to the ground and ran to Clive's house.

* * *

She threw open the front door and ran inside. Clive stood in the front parlor. "Oh, dear God," he said, putting down his teacup. In the light, Selena looked down at her body.

With her torn shirt, she wiped away some of the blood. Clive took off her jacket and ran to the powder room. He came back with his arm full of towels, and spread them across the sofa. "Lie down," he said. "Don't move too much."

She lay down across the towels and he left and returned with bandages and a bottle of alcohol. He kneeled down in front of her and began to clean the wound. "Looks like you need a few stitches," he said. "I know this isn't the most pleasant of tasks, but if we went to hospital, they'd just have too many questions."

* * *

Saturday night, she walked the blocks to Saint Mary Cemetery. Her stitches had been removed, and the wound was nothing but a faded pink line. She wore a sweater and a flouncy skirt, and if Clive had seen her he would have asked why she was dressed so impractically.

It was dark, and as she entered the cemetery grounds there was nothing to be seen but the moon, and nothing to hear but an owl. Before long, she noticed a creature, a demon who had once been a man.

He was alone, and so was she. She ran through the darkness. He didn't notice her until she was upon him, knocking him to the ground. He was on his back, and she climbed onto his body. Stretching out his arm, she pulled a stake from her pocket and jabbed it through his hand, into the ground, as he screamed. His other arm clawed at her face, and she used her strength to hold it to the ground. She pulled out another stake and drove it through his other hand. Now the vampire wailed helplessly, unable to move.

Selena pushed herself off of him and walked to a grove of trees. She found a bramble bush and pulled its soft branches apart. The vampire's legs kicked in the air. She tied them together with the branches, getting little cuts on her hands.

She leaned forward, undid his pants and pulled them down to his knees. "What the hell are you _doing!"_ he shouted. "What the hell are you _doing!"_

She stood, reached under her skirt, pulled off her underpants, and dropped them to the ground. The vampire writhed and screamed. She stepped over his body with one leg, and lowered herself onto him.

He was hard and she was wet and he slid all the way inside. It hurt, but she started moving, back and forth. She told herself that it wasn't the worst pain she had ever felt. She told herself that every girl had to go through it. When it seemed enough time had passed, she stopped.

She got off and stood up. Warm liquid ran down her legs. She found her underpants and pulled them back on. The vampire had stopped screaming, and simply lay on the ground. She found a sharp branch and stabbed it through his heart.

* * *

Selena looked into the bathroom mirror. The window was open, birds sang and the sun was now fully over the horizon. Saturday night came back to her like a dream. As pathetic as it was to do it with a tied-up vampire in a cemetery, she had done it, and she wanted everyone to know. She closed her eyes. She wished you could tell by looking.

Selena opened her eyes and looked into the mirror. Her skin somehow seemed better than it had when she had woken up. It was as if her zits had suddenly vanished, and the dark circles under her eyes weren't as bad. When she brushed her hair, it fell into place perfectly. It had never looked better, and she couldn't turn away from her reflection.

Suddenly, her sister was pounding on the door. "I have to_ go!" _she shouted. "I have to _go!" _

Then, Mom's voice, "Tabby has to go! Tabby has to go!"

Selena finally turned away from herself and opened the bathroom door. Her mother and sister shoved past her, both of them going into the bathroom for some reason, and locked the door behind themselves. She found her books in the living room and went back to the hall to see her reflection in the full-length mirror.

She wore the same faded corduroys and plaid shirt she often wore, but for some reason, the outfit looked good. Her legs rose to a gorgeous waist, her arms were toned, her breasts were perfect, and her neck was all Hepburn-esque. She wanted to stay in front of the mirror, posing and admiring herself, all day.

She finally left the house and walked to school. Across the crowded lawn, she saw Grant Marzano, standing by the flagpole. He had always been gorgeous, but there was something different about him today. He seemed unreal, like an image from a movie screen. He watched her stride up the concrete path, and when she was close enough, he said, "Hey, Selena."

"Hi," was all she could manage to get out.

When the bell rang, she went to her first class. She walked into the room and stood still. A few desks in one back corner were occupied by kids who were just...different. It was as if they glowed, and Selena was drawn to them like a flower is drawn to the sun. In the other desks sat some kids who seemed sort of creepy. Their clothes were crumpled and their hair was messy. They hunched over their desks in strange ways. Even Lisa Maxwell, whom Selena had always admired from a distance, was now repulsive to her.

Pam Sikes stood up from one back desk. "Selena!" she called. "Do you want to sit with us?"

Selena made her way to the back of the room and sat beside Pam. "You look great today!" said Robin White.

"Thanks," Selena said. "So do you."

Tom Ainsley stretched his legs and leaned back with his arms behind his head. "Isn't it a great day to be alive?"

Selena laughed along with everyone else, but she really did feel better than she ever had.

The bell rang, and Mrs. Brighton walked into the room. She was the oldest teacher in the school, probably close to eighty, but today, something was different. She moved like a teenager, sitting on the edge of her desk and crossing her legs.

"Let's try to get something done today," she said, as a breeze blew in the window.

Selena had Spanish second hour. Mr. Gonzalez stood in the doorway of his class, and if he hadn't been a teacher, he almost would have been handsome. His amber skin set off his dark hair and mustache. "Morning, Mike," he said. "Morning, Gwen. Morning Selena."

But when Holly Frank and Jim Mitchell walked into the room, he turned away from them in disgust. Their eyes were glazed over and their mouths hung open. As they walked to their desks, their knuckles dragged on the floor.

After Spanish, Selena walked downstairs to the cafeteria. As she turned a corner, she stopped where she was. She saw two kids she knew but barely recognized. Kevin Chism and Joel Weller had been backed into a corner by the principal, Mr. Finlay. Their skin was a grey color, and hung from their bones, as if there was too much of it for their bodies. Their eyes bugged out of the sockets. Mr. Finlay stood over them, shouting and spitting in their faces.

She walked through the open doors of the cafeteria. The most coveted tables were near the windows and the outside doors, and Selena usually sat closer to the trash cans. But today she walked to a good table, sat down between Pam and Grant, and felt that she belonged.

She had gym after lunch. As she walked into the locker room, she saw Trish Thomas, who was usually unwashed and considered even less popular than Selena, standing in front of a mirror. She wore only a pair of underpants, and looked like a runway model. She turned this way and that, admiring her reflection.

Selena changed into her yellow T-shirt and green shorts and went out to the gym. The volleyball net had been set up, and Mr. Russo stood in the center of the floor, tossing the ball back and forth from one hand to the other. His whistle was in his mouth.

He started shouting: "Jackson, left. Brinks, right. Stoker, left. Andersen, right..."

Selena went to stand on her side of the net. When Mr. Russo was finished shouting, she realized what he had done. One team was made up of beautiful people; the other was not. She looked through the net at Kurt Woods. It seemed like he could barely hold himself upright.

Mr. Russo blew his whistle and tossed the ball onto the floor. Someone on Selena's team served, and the ball flew over the net. It hit two people on the other team, knocking them to the floor, and rolled to the bleachers. Mr. Russo retrieved it.

"Rotate!"

Selena's team rotated, and the ball was served again. It collided into Kurt and knocked him down. They rotated again, and Mr. Russo tossed the ball to Selena.

She looked to the other side of the net. The few kids who remained standing huddled together, whimpering in fear. Selena balanced the ball in her left hand.

She knew to hide her Slayer strengths. And she didn't really want to hurt anyone. She tossed the ball in a vertical line towards the ceiling. It started its descent, and when it was level with her eyes she raised her right hand and smacked it with all her might.

It flew so fast it wasn't visible. Then she heard a crash, and there was a hole in the floor near the drinking fountain. The varnished floorboards stood up at odd angles. Mr. Russo's whistle fell out of his mouth. "Holy crap," he said. Everyone looked at Selena, their eyes wide with shock.

* * *

When the day ended, she left the building and walked across the school lawn. She suddenly heard a shout, and saw Clive's car parked at the curb. "Selena!" he yelled, standing at the driver's door and motioning to her to hurry. She jogged to the car.

"It's a demon," he said, breathlessly, as they sat down. He sped out of the parking lot to the street. "A Nozomi. Terrorizing the community."

Selena searched the demon encyclopedia that was her mind. A Nozomi, or wish demon, lived in another dimension but could hear thoughts on earth. It listened intensely, waiting for some unsuspecting human to make a wish. When the person did, it granted the wish and was then able to traverse dimensions. Once on earth, it feasted on human flesh.

"It's been spotted in Shaker Lakes Park," Clive continued. "The only thing we can do is hope to contain it. It can only be killed by the person who made the wish, and finding that person would be next to impossible."

The car sped into the park. Selena saw overturned picnic tables and people running and screaming in all directions. She leaped out of the car and ran as fast as she could. At the top of a hill, she stopped at what she saw below.

A giant green monster scrambled across the grass. It was the first non-vampire demon Selena had ever seen, and she stared in wonder.

Clive arrived at her side, breathing hard. He held a length of rope in one hand. "Try to tie its limbs together," he said. "It's all we can hope to do..."

"I think I made the wish."

"You? Are you sure? You..."

She ran down the hill. She jumped into the air and brought her fist down onto the Nozomi's head before she landed. It was so strange to battle a demon as the sun shone in her eyes. She punched it again, and again.

"For God's sake!" Clive shouted from yards away. "Snap its neck!"

"Couldn't we just cage it or something!"

"What in the world did you wish for? To be popular or something?"

"Not exactly."

"Will you kill it!"

It lunged at her, growling. Selena kicked it in its jaw, and when its head snapped back, she grasped it in both hands and broke its neck. The creature dissolved into green goo that sunk into the ground, and she felt her life go back to normal.


	4. Junior Year

**Cleveland, Ohio, 1979**

Selena stepped out of a bathroom stall and walked to the sinks. A group of girls stood around in front of the mirrors, admiring their reflections as they blew smoke rings up to the ceiling. She squeezed between them to wash her hands.

"Scott Feldman is a _boy_. Ron Gilbert is a _man_."

So these were the scintillating conversations seniors had. Turning off the water, she dried her hands on her jeans and left the room.

In the hall, she gasped. Someone had grabbed her arm. Mr. Finlay, the school principal, was standing so near that his breath was in her face. His fingers wrapped around her arm.

He stuck his nose into her hair and inhaled. "You smell like cigarettes."

She struggled out of his grasp. "Some very bad girls were smoking in the bathroom but I wasn't smoking."

"Go to the office."

"What! Why?"

"Go!" he shouted, and everyone in the hall turned around and looked.

* * *

In the office, she waited. She sat in a chair and looked at the clock. Then she waited some more.

Finally, the door opened, and Mr. Finlay walked inside. He shut the door behind him.

"You dirty little slut," he muttered.

"What!"

"All of you are." He sat down on the edge of his desk. "When I was your age, I had a _job_," he said. "I didn't run around going to parties every night and sleep during class. I had responsibilities."

"And look at you now."

He stood and grasped a huge pile of papers from the top of a file cabinet. He threw them at her. "Alphabetize these," he said, and left the room.

* * *

The thousands of papers were alphabetized and lying in a neat stack on the principal's desk. Selena had missed her Spanish class, and she heard the next bell ring. She went to the door, tried the doorknob, and found that it was locked. She banged on the fake wood while she twisted the doorknob. "Hey!" she shouted. "Someone let me out!"

She listened and heard nothing. The walls in the office were painted beige and there was a fake plant in the corner. Suddenly, she couldn't stand it. She ran to the window and pulled up the venetian blinds. She opened the window with one hand and leaned out into the fresh air.

She looked below, at the parking lot. All she had to do was squeeze out the window and jump to the ground. She could jump from that height, she knew how to land...but if someone saw her...

She turned around. One wall was lined with file cabinets. Selena walked to them and pulled one handle. It didn't open, and she noticed the key hole under the handle. She walked to his desk and sat in his chair. The top drawer easily slid open. Inside, she found a large key ring. She picked it up and closed the drawer. She went back to the file cabinets.

She unlocked a drawer, pulled it open, and saw papers in manila folders. She reached in and pulled out a handful. She read her classmates' names, and...oh look at that, grades. Why, she'd come across everyone's permanent records. Wendy Zimmerman's I.Q. was surprisingly low. She tossed the papers to the desk and searched again, looking for the S's.

The door popped open. "What the hell are you doing?" he shouted.

Her eyes didn't move from the papers. "Well, you locked me in here," she said. "What was I supposed to -"

He snatched the records from her hands and shoved her out of his way. Sitting behind his desk, he picked up a pen. "I'm giving you detention," he said. "Every Friday afternoon for the next -"

Selena left the office, and hurried to her last class.

* * *

She jogged around the house and up the steps of the back porch. Opening the door, she walked into the kitchen. Her mother was backed against the refrigerator, and Amos was on top of her, with the palms of both hands laid on her face. "Mob," he said, as she tried to turn away from his breath, "Mob, Mob, you have to admit you shouldn't have screamed when I grabbed the mai out of your hand. You have to admit -"

"Okay!" she shouted. "I shouldn't have screamed!"

"When I grab the mai...the mai out of your hand."

"When you grabbed the mail out of my hand!"

He turned her head to his face with both of his filthy hands. "Mob, Mob, firs I saw you take-a the mai from the mai box, and then I grab the mai out of your hand, and then you screamed..."

"You scratched me with those dirty nails!"

Selena saw him squeeze their mother's head between his two hands.

"You have to admit you should have been able to withstand the pain without scream-a."

"I should have been able to withstand the pain without screaming! Now let me go!"

"Let go, Amos!" Selena shouted, grabbing his arm and pulling it away. Amos let go of Mom's face and turned to her. Selena ran from him, into the hall.

He clawed at her arm but she made it into the bathroom and slammed the door. She locked it just as he pounded on the other side. She turned on the water to wash his filth from her hands. The long crack that ran down the side of the bathroom door had been there a few years. When he had broken down the door, it had been glued back together. Now, the sheet of wood bulged every time his fist hit, and it seemed he would break it again.

She heard her mother's voice. "Amos, stop! Stop!"

Selena pulled open the door and saw her mother on her stomach. Amos sat on top of her. His teeth were bared like a wild animal's, and he breathed loudly through his mouth. Kneeling on top of Mom's back, he growled as his dirty fingers wiped across her face.

Their mother screamed. "Amos, get off! I can't breathe, I can't _breathe_!"

Selena kicked her foot into Amos's stomach, and the amount of strength and pain caused a shock that rolled him off Mom's body to the floor.

Their mother stood up. "This is why I never get anything done!" she said. Amos stood in the hallway, breathing loudly. "I have to put up with this crap all the time! You two fighting!"

* * *

She walked down the street, her coat zipped to her chin and her hands shoved into her pockets. It was dark but it wasn't late. She crossed the street to Lake View, and walked in the open gates.

Patches of snow were unmelted in corners and on top of stones. The sky was filled with dark clouds. Someone screamed. Selena ran. At a small hill, her tennis shoes slipped from the wet ground and she fell, landing on her side.

She pushed herself up. Half of her body was covered in grainy mud. She wiped her hand over her clothes and pushed her fingers through her hair. The wet clumps of earth kept it in place, out of her eyes. She heard another scream.

Near the east fence, a vampire held a woman against a statue of a giant male deer. Its fangs were in her throat, but her terrified eyes saw Selena. The Slayer ran to the vampire and kicked his legs away from the ground. He fell away, and she pulled a stake from her coat and poked it into his back. He disappeared.

The woman breathed loudly, leaning against the deer and holding one hand to her bleeding neck. "What happened?" she gasped.

"You got bit."

"Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter," Selena muttered. "There's a hole in the fence...if you go that way you can get out."

The woman looked towards the fence as Selena walked away, tossing her stake into the air and catching it again.

She climbed a hill as happy bunnies scurried out of sight. When she came near John Rockefeller's giant phallus of a grave marker, she heard voices. She crept behind an elm tree and slowed her breath.

"That Craig Holmes bastard...you know what he did to me in gym? He poured water on my pants so it would look like I pissed in my pants. Like that's so funny."

"He's going out with that bitch who stuffs her bra."

"Sherry Frasier?"

"_Cherry_ Frasier."

Selena stepped out of the darkness. Kevin Chism and Joel Weller sat in the grass, leaning back against the giant stone. When they heard her, they looked up.

"What are you guys doing here?" she asked.

"What are _you_ doing here?" said Kevin.

"Hey," said Joel. "Don't you go to Yardley? Sabrina..."

"Selena," Kevin told him. "Selena Stoker."

"It's not safe here after dark," she said. "You should leave."

"What," Kevin laughed, "are the ghosts gonna get us?"

"No," she said, walking away. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

* * *

Sunday morning, she woke up at Clive's house. Sunlight poured in the windows, and the aroma of breakfast traveled up the stairs. She threw her heavy blanket off of her body.

Clive and Oliver sat at the dining room table, which was piled with dishes of mushrooms, beans, eggs, pudding, sausage, and tomatoes, and each read a section of the week's paper. Selena pulled out a chair and sat down in front of her plate.

"Anything to report?" Clive asked, sipping his coffee.

"No," she said. "Except these two spazzes I saw at Lake View."

"Spastic?"

"Spaz...stupid people. Two guys from school who think it's fun to spend all night in the cemetery."

"Probably end up dead."

Oliver lowered his paper. "We all end up dead."


	5. School's Out

**Cleveland, Ohio, 1980**

* * *

The sun shone in the cold morning sky. Selena carried her books down the sidewalk. She crossed the street and hurried across the school lawn.

As she came near the building, something seemed different. There was no hurrying and no roar of voices. People stood in front of the brick walls and simply looked. She squeezed between elbows and backpacks to the front of the crowd.

The school was three stories tall, with over one hundred rooms, and three or four windows in each room. Her eyes flashed up and down and across the walls. Each window was covered in some dark, rough-looking slab of steel. The front doors were propped open, as usual.

"Who did it?" someone asked.

"_How_ they did it is the question."

Selena slipped along the edge of the crowd. She grasped the cold metal rail and climbed the stairs to the front doors.

Each light in each hall burned its fluorescent glow, but the school was strangely dark. Everyone seemed to be walking slowly. Selena made her way to her art class, glanced at the dark windows, and sat down at her table.

When the bell rang, Mrs. Ford walked in. "Quiet," she said. "Today is just like any other day. Let's get our work done."

"But who did it?" someone asked.

"How could they have done it overnight?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Ford pronounced. "But I'm sure Mr. Finlay is doing something."

Trays of charcoal pencils and stacks of blank paper were in the center of each table. In the eerie yellow light, Selena settled down to her work.

Suddenly, the room was black. Everyone was silent, and then everyone started to talk.

"Oh my god."

"What's going on?"

Mrs. Ford's heels clicked on the floor as she walked out into the hall. Selena rose from her seat. The lights came on and she sat down again as Mrs. Ford returned.

"What's going on?" Casey Stewart said again.

"I don't know," Mrs. Ford began. "But - "

Just then, the PA box, high on the wall above the clock, crackled on. Selena heard something like muffled breathing. And then:

"Say it! Say it!"

"I...I apologize..." The principal gasped for breath. "I apologize for my low I.Q."

"Say it!"

"I apologize for being completely inept."

A crashing sound came from the box. Selena jumped to her feet. "It smells like smoke," she said. "Do you smell that?"

"That's not funny, Selena," said Mrs. Ford. "Not funny at all."

She ran around the table and out of the room, ignoring the teacher's shouts. In the hallway, her tennis shoes sounded on the floor as she hurried towards the staircase. The burning smell grew stronger as she held the rail and rushed down the stairs. On the first floor, she ran through the empty halls to the offices.

Pushing open the door, she stepped inside. She was alone. She heard nothing but the pulsating sound of a phone left off the hook.

Her heart beat strongly as she moved around the counter. The school employed two secretaries, both overweight, middle-aged women. First, she saw their legs. She saw their heeled shoes and stockings and skirts. She let her gaze move to their faces. Their eyes were wide. Both of their mouths and fallen open and would never close again. The phone receiver was on the floor. Selena saw the blood that ran from both women's necks.

A chair had fallen over, and its legs stuck in the air. She broke one wooden leg from the chair and held the jagged-edged stake in her hand.

Her footsteps moved silently across the floor. When she reached the hall to the inner offices, she paused, leaning into the doorframe. She listened.

The principal's office was at the end of the hall, and there were three other doors. One of them was ajar. Selena flattened her back against the wall and stepped towards it. When she was close enough, she took a breath and kicked open the door.

She found no one. The room was small and contained a table and an overturned chair. On the table was a microphone. She turned back.

Before her, on one wall, were two closed doors. She pushed one open and found an empty office. The next door revealed the same thing. In the hall, she looked at the door to the principal's office.

She took a few steps. She clapsed the cold doorknob in her fingertips. She turned the knob and opened the door.

The office was empty. The clock ticked on the wall.

She ran back down the hall, around the counter in the front office and through the doorway.

The halls were empty, but loud pounding and shouting came from the floor above. She ran down the empty staircase. The smell of smoke was strong.

In the basement, she crossed the concrete floor and heard voices. She came to the door marked JANITOR and pulled it open. She looked at mops and brooms and a rusted old sink.

"Don't, Harry, please don't."

"Stay still, Dora. This ain't gonna hurt."

She spun around and saw no one. Moving down the hall, the grey walls moved with her. Her view pixelated and returned to normal. She arrived at the boys' bathroom and stepped into the echoey space.

"Sissy," she heard, and then the sound of someone groaning as he was hit. "Pansy."

The door of each stall was open, and there was no one to be seen. She heard water run into the sink and looked around. The sinks were dry.

Back in the hall, she ran to the cafeteria. The burning smell didn't leave and she heard quiet screams. She kicked open the door and rushed inside.

Tables and chairs were overturned, and bodies were on the floor. Nothing moved. Grant Marzano's body lay across a chair, and his lifeless eyes were frozen in her direction.

She left the cafeteria and ran upstairs. As she arrived in the main floor, she stopped in the crowd. People ran in all directions. Footsteps thundered so loudly that the screaming could hardly be heard. At one dark window, a hysterical girl punched her fist through the glass and cried as the window broke and her hand hit the sheet of steel.

"The doors won't open!"

Selena's head whipped around. Mrs. Archer shouted at Mr. Martinez, who stood in the doorway of his room. He looked at the chaos and threw up his hands helplessly.

"The doors won't open and they're killing students!"

Selena ran around the corner and through the lobby. At the main entrance, she saw that heavy pieces of wood had been bolted over the front doors. A group of guys held the pole of a volleyball net and crashed it, over and over, into the wooden planks.

When she ran downstairs, she heard a distant roar of voices. She ran past empty classrooms and lockers. Another short flight of steps brought her across the hall to the gym doors.

Selena looked at the chaos in front of her. The sound deafened her ears, and it was too crowded to move. In one corner, a pile of bodies covered the floor.

She dropped her stake and ran up the bleachers as fast as she could, not caring who saw. At the end of the top seat, she vaulted over the rail and leaped over the crowd to the floor of the stage. She landed on her side, jumped to her feet and pulled apart the curtain. Backstage, she descended a short flight of steps.

The halls leading to the locker rooms were concrete and dark. When Selena heard voices, she ran.

She kicked open a door and hurried into the boys' locker room. The walls were green and the room was dark. She heard water splashing loudly and rushed between benches to the back wall.

The shower was a big open space with several faucets. Lying on the floor, slumped into the wall, were three people. Mr. Finlay lay beneath Kevin Chism and Joel Weller, who held the principal onto the tiled floor. Steaming water ran from one faucet. Kevin pulled Mr. Finlay's tie sharply around his neck. Mr. Finlay's face was red and he gasped for breath as the hot water poured onto him. Selena splashed through the burning puddle, and Kevin and Joel turned to her. She saw that they had the faces of demons.

"What are you doing here!" Kevin hissed.

As he and Joel held Mr. Finlay, Selena reached across them and turned off the water. The principal gasped and spit.

"Get away!" Joel screamed, standing up. He pushed Selena and she fell back a few steps.

"I can't," she said. "I can't let you kill him."

"It's not up to you!" Kevin leaped up and Mr. Finlay fell, coughing, to his side.

"No, it's not up to me," she said. "If it was up to me, I'd be a normal person with friends, and..."

"Do you have any idea what I've been through in the past four years!" shouted Joel. He reached for Mr. Finlay's tie and jerked the principal to his feet. "All because of him!"

"But you shouldn't kill him," Selena said.

"Then what am I supposed to do!"

She leaned back into a corner. "Do you think you've been through more than I have?" A sob came from her throat as she spoke. "Since I was ten years old, I...

"What you should do is survive everything so that when you're older you could become a principal and do things right, or you could go into politics or something, or write books about it, or...I mean, you're dead now, so you can't, but... At least you had a future to hope for. At least you had that. For the rest of my life, I..."

She looked at Kevin's yellow eyes, and at Joel's. She reached forward and grabbed Joel's head, pulling it backwards and snapping his neck. He turned to dust, and Kevin tried to attack, but the Slayer was ready and she killed him.

She looked down at Mr. Finlay. His face was red and blistered. "You'll pay for this," he muttered.

She left the locker room and climbed the stairs. Pushing through the curtain, she walked out onto the stage.

The outside doors were open. Selena saw broken glass shine in the light from the sun. She heard sirens and saw flashing lights outside. She looked around the empty gym and knew that she had lost what she never really had.

* * *

_8 December, 1980_

_The Slayer has been expelled from school. She was blamed for 'inciting chaos and mayhem.' The true culprits were, of course, never found. Her duties as the Slayer continue. _


	6. The New Watcher

**Cleveland, Ohio, 1981**

* * *

It was midnight. Selena lay on the ground at Lake View Cemetery. Her stake was three feet away, her arm was stretched towards it, and she was trying to use The Force to pull it into her hand. The stake remained in the grass. It didn't even wiggle.

She heard a sound and sat up. She listened, then reached for her stake, grabbed it and jumped to her feet. Running across the wet grass, she saw, in the dark, a group of three vampires, moving swiftly among the tombstones, talking and laughing. She concealed herself behind an angel statue and waited. When they were close enough, she leaped.

She dusted one immediately, and the other two attacked. They were large and strong, and knew how to fight. She kicked and her foot landed on their arms; she punched and found only their heads. Finally, she drove a stake through one heart. The last vamp knocked her to the ground. It was on top of her, then she kicked it away. They were both on their feet. They fought. She heard more footsteps. Someone was behind her. She destroyed the vampire and pulled her stake from its chest. Turning, she raised the shaft of wood.

"Careful, luv."

His hands were in front of him, as if he was ready to defend himself. He was obviously human.

"I'm Adrian. I'm your new Watcher."

Selena lowered her stake.

"Nice kill," he said, smiling.

She breathed hard.

"Let's sit down and have a proper chat."

He stood with his arm out, towards a bench. Selena looked at him. She looked around the cemetery. No other monsters were in sight. She walked to the bench. She sat down, and he sat next to her.

"How did they know Clive was dead?"

"He hadn't checked in in a bit, so they looked into it."

"Did they tell his family or anything?"

"Yes, the Council would have notified his next of kin."

"But they don't know how it happened, do they?"

"How _did_ it happen?"

She looked across the grass, as far as she could, to a place where the darkness collected into a grove of trees. She didn't answer.

"Is there any chance of him having been turned?"

"No," she said. "There's no chance."

A wonderfully sweet breeze blew in the dark, and Selena breathed in the ecstasy of nature. This cemetery, more than any other, had been her home. Now she asked herself if it could possibly really exist. Nothing as bad as what had happened...

She suddenly looked at the man beside her. Things had gotten _so bad_, that she wasn't even sure if she was really alive anymore. He had said he was her new Watcher. And she needed a new Watcher because Clive was dead.

"I had to tell Oliver that he died," she said. "And then I went home, and the next time I went back to the house, everything was gone. All the doors were locked..."

"Mr. Quimby gave Clive's journals to the Council. I've read them. They end on February 11...is that the night he died?"

"Yes, my eighteenth birthday." She looked sharply into his face. "I know about the Cruciamentum. He told me."

"He _did_?"

She nodded. "He said that if the Council found out, he'd be fired immediately...but he died instead."

"Do you want to tell me how it happened?"

She looked at the graves. She shook her head.

* * *

He was back.

She didn't know how long it had been; really, she didn't. He had never been there much, and she liked it a lot more when he wasn't there. Then he had left, she had thought forever…but now her father was back. His car was in the driveway, and he was in the house.

Tabby was at school. She didn't know where Amos was. Selena lay in her basement closet, listening to her mother and father fight in the kitchen above.

"Did she give a good _blow_ job, Don? How many _kids_ did you have together? Is that where all the money goes?"

"We didn't have any _kids_ together, Na_dine_!"

That's where he'd been, and what they were fighting about: he had lived with another woman. That would be a reason to get divorced, wouldn't it? Selena hoped they would.

"Is that who's been driving past the house every day? That dirty old _whore_?"

"She hasn't been driving past the _house_ every day!"

Selena could hear Amos's voice from the floor above, saying, "Dab, Dab, who've been drive-a pass the hou ever day? Dab, Dab…."

Then her father shouted, "Just get away from me! You dirty stinking asshole! Why don't you go take a bath!"

"Selena can _hear_ you, Don!"

"I don't give a _fuck_ about Selena! She's as bad as _he_ is!"

Selena looked at the clock. She put on her shoes and climbed out the window.

* * *

As she walked the few blocks down the sidewalk, the sun lowered in the sky. She usually approached Clive's house from the other direction, walking home from school…but it wasn't Clive's house anymore, and she didn't go to school anymore. She had been expelled, her mother had yelled at her…but there was no discussion of finding another school, or doing anything but lying in the basement. But she always had the slaying.

She was at the house. The front lawn needed to be mowed. She walked through the tall grass to the porch. She put her hand on the doorknob, and thought she heard Clive's voice, and Oliver's….

_"She's not been getting her homework done…probably watches the telly too much…."_

_"She's not our daughter."_

_"She's the closest thing we'll ever have."_

But those weren't their voices, they were only memories…and though it was the very recent past, memories were all she had. She went inside.

Adrian St. James, her new Watcher, met her in the foyer. She had heard of the St. James family of Watchers, and had read some of the journals of Adrian's father and grandfather and great-grandfather. This was his house now…maybe she shouldn't have come in without knocking. She didn't know.

"Afternoon, Selena," he said. "Ready for training?"

She looked at him. She hadn't noticed the first time she'd seen him, but he looked far too young to be a Watcher. And he wasn't wearing a three-piece suit, or a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and, like, punk rock combat boots.

"I don't need to train anymore," she said. "I already know how to slay."

He smiled. "Well, we have some time before the sun goes down. Let's go downstairs and you can show me what you can do."

"But…." She scratched her arm. "Okay."

She followed him through the kitchen and down to the basement. For an hour, she killed pretend vampires, predicted all of Adrian's moves, and impressed him with her maneuvers. When they were finished, he was sweating and breathing hard, and Selena was overpowered with that Slayer's lust for the kill.

"You remind me of Daisy," he said, wiping a towel over his neck and arms. "You've read about her?"

"Mm-hmm." She remembered that Daisy Turner had been Adrian's father's Slayer, twenty years before. "What was it like when she died?"

He laid the towel on a chair. "Well, it was terrible."

Selena's face and throat became hot, and, though she didn't mean to, she began to cry. She covered her face with one hand.

"Hey, it's all right," he said quietly.

"I just…I can't believe I have to keep doing it without him here."

"I know," he said, sitting down on the steps.

Selena sniffed and wiped her face. She looked at the clock on the wall. The sun would be going down soon.

"Hey, we've still got some time before dark. Let's go find something for dinner, eh?"

She nodded, then the tears came again and she cried heavily. She rushed past him up the stairs.

* * *

"So, where's a good place to go?" he asked. It was the same car, and she was sitting in the same seat, but he was driving, not Clive.

"I don't know."

"What do you want? Pizza?"

"I guess."

_He must think American Teens exist on nothing else_, Selena thought. "There's a place…go that way."

She pointed, and he turned right. It was Friday, and the traffic was heavy.

"It's weird to be on the other side of the road," Adrian said.

She was looking out the window. "What? Oh."

He turned into the parking lot. They got out of the car. Rain droplets hit her face as Selena walked inside.

The inside of the restaurant was dark and smoky, and a jukebox played. Selena and Adrian found a table and slid in on opposite sides of the booth.

A cheery waitress came and gave them each a menu, then returned with icy glasses of soda.

"My, no Yorkshire pudding?" Adrian asked, looking at the menu.

Selena looked down, and the words blurred under her eyes. The waitress returned, and they ordered. She looked out the window.

"I guess you don't have to worry about school anymore."

She looked down at the table. "That's not a good thing."

"No. I guess not."

She moved her straw around in her glass. "There's supposed to be another Hellmouth in California."

"Mm-hmm."

"It's supposed to be even worse than this one."

"That's hard to imagine, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Clive said that maybe we could go live there after I graduated…so maybe we could now."

"We'd have to get the Council's permission."

"Will you ask them?"

"I'll ask."

The waitress returned and set their dinner before them.

"It doesn't really matter," Selena said. "It was just something to look forward to."

"Well," he answered, "I guess we always need something to look forward to."

She ate a few bites, but her stomach was queasy.

"I need to know about what happened to Clive," he said. "If the vampire's still on the loose…."

"A lot of vampires are on the loose."

"But if he was able to kill a Watcher…."

"I wasn't feeling like myself."

"I know… He told you about the Cruciamentum?"

"I have to go to the bathroom."

Selena stood up and walked around tables and past pinball machines to the women's restroom. She swung open the door and went to the sinks. Leaning forward with her hands on the porcelain, she looked into the mirror.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and the walls were a sickening gray color. She splashed cold water onto her face and turned to leave the room.

The door swung open abruptly. "Selena!" someone exclaimed. Why, it was three girls from school: Valerie, Dana and Lynn.

"Great way to get expelled!" Dana said.

"I didn't actually do anything…."

"Who are you here with?"

"My…my friend." _He's not my Watcher because I don't have a Watcher because I'm not the Slayer because there's no such thing as vampires despite what you may see in Cleveland from time to time. _

She squeezed past them through the door. She went back to the table and sat down with Adrian.

"Eat the last piece," he said. "You need your strength."

She absently picked up the last triangle and bit into it. Over Adrian's shoulder, she saw Valerie, Dana and Lynn sit down two tables over with Dean Jackson and Gary Brewer. She let herself wonder what they had done at school that day, and slipped deeper into melancholy.

"What do you keep looking at?"

"Oh…just some people I went to school with."

Adrian looked over his shoulder at them. "Well, go say hello."

She looked down at her plate. "No, they're not people I would say hello to."

Then, she heard: "She said he was her friend."

"He's old enough to be her dad."

She looked across the table. "You're not old enough to be my dad, are you?"

"I'm thirty-three."

" 'Schoolboy Father'," she laughed.

"Pardon?"

"It's this ridiculous show kids are supposed to watch to learn valuable lessons about life… 'Hewitt's Just Different.'"

"I finally got to see your smile…and there it goes."

"Don't we have to leave?"

"Yeah…it's dark."

Adrian paid the bill and they walked outside and back to the car. They drove to the cemetery.

"Want me to stay with you tonight?" he asked, as the car idled in the street.

"No, it's okay…I'll go alone."

* * *

Her mother was in the kitchen, alone, setting the table. Selena walked to her and asked, "Are you going to get divorced?"

"Get divorced?" She set plates around the table. "Well...maybe."

"Are you or not?"

"I don't know...maybe."

"Well, do you want to?"

"The thing is, without him, we don't have any _money_."

"We never have any money anyway."

"Well...I don't know."

"He's not eating dinner here tonight, is he?"

"I don't know...maybe."

The table was set, and Tabby came into the room, carrying one of the hamsters. She set him down on the table, then pushed all the plates together so he couldn't escape. Then the back door opened, and _he_ walked in...and sat down, as if everything was happy.

Sniffy raised his leg on the trash can and peed all over the floor. Mom stepped in the puddle, and left footprints of urine on the linoleum as she walked to the table and sat down.

"I _wike_ wadishes!" Tabby proclaimed.

"You _wike_ them?" Selena asked. "You _wike_ them?"

Tabby grabbed a radish out of the bowl of salad and shoved it into her mouth, using mannerisms she thought were that of a cute little girl. Their father belched loudly and spooned more food onto his plate. The hamster ran across a tray of butter, and Amos walked into the room.

"Remember when you used to say a _monster _was chasing you?" Tabby laughed.

Mom looked at Tabby. "She's just jealous."

"You're _dealous_ of me!"

Amos crashed to his knees, and Sniffy yelped and scampered out of the way. Selena stabbed through a piece of lettuce with her fork, then a radish, then a carrot. She raised the bite to her mouth.

"You're not supposed to eat salad that way," her sister said. "You feel stupid!"

"Dab," Amos said. "Dab, whove been drive-a pass the hou ever day?"

"No one! No one! Get the fuck away from me!" He spit out food as he shouted.

"You don't have to yell at him, Don," Mom said. "Do you think that does any good?"

"He acts like a fucking retard!"

Suddenly, Tabby screamed, "We fordot to pway!"

"Oh, you're right!" Mom screamed, just as loudly.

Selena continued to eat while her mother and sister bowed their heads.

"Dear God," Tabby began. "I _wove_ you. Fank you for giving us food. Amen."

"Do you talk like that in school?" Selena asked.

"At least I _go_ to school."

"Wow, what a witty insult."

"You're just lucky I'm too nice to say something I could really say right now."

Selena looked up, and her eyes accidentally met her father's. Both he and she looked awkwardly into their plates.

* * *

At sunset, she walked down the sidewalk. As she came upon her Watcher's house, her footsteps slowed, and then she stopped walking. She decided not to go in.

She crossed the street and walked north, not really paying attention to where she was going. She didn't carry a stake. As she crossed the street, she reached under her hair and unhooked her necklace. She let the silver chain and the cross fall to the ground.

She climbed the fence surrounding Lake View. The cemetery was so big, she was almost certain to meet at least one vampire there every night. She had been running from demons since she was a child…but then her father – her real father – told her to stop running. He told her that not only could she destroy them, but that she was made to destroy them. And now her father was gone.

She found an above-ground sarcophagus and lay down on top of it. The stone was smooth and cool. She closed her eyes, and breathed.

She woke up. She had fallen asleep in the cemetery, and who knew what time it was? She heard footsteps in the dark. Pushing herself onto one elbow, she listened. She sat up, and moved her hair away from her neck.

The vampire was wearing a suit, and he was covered in earth. He must have dug himself out of his grave that very night, which meant he would have only one thing on his mind. His forehead was bumpy and his teeth were sharp. He stopped walking when he saw Selena. He smiled.

She wondered what it would feel like. Pain no longer meant anything to her; it was just a part of getting what she wanted. Up till now, what she'd wanted was survival, and to slay. But now…Clive was dead. And she wanted to know where he'd gone.

When the vampire grabbed her, she almost pushed him away. She almost grabbed his head and snapped his neck. But she used her strength not to fight, but to control herself. His hands, all over her body, disgusted her, and his breath was hot. His teeth found her throat.

Then, nothing. The vampire exploded into a cloud of dust. Selena opened her eyes.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Adrian shouted. He stood in front of her, a stake in his hand. "Why didn't you fight?"

She started to cry. "Because I'm sick of fighting!"

"Where's your stake?" he demanded. "Why aren't you wearing a cross?"

"I can't do it anymore! Not without him…."

He stood with his hands on his hips, looking at her and breathing hard.

"I can't stop hearing him scream," Selena wailed.

"Let's go back to the house," he said. "You're done for the night. We're going back to the house."

She shook her head back and forth. "No no no no…."

"Tell me what happened to Clive."

"No no no…."

"Come on. We're going."

He stepped forward, and then a shadow moved in front of him. There was a rustle, loud breathing, and Adrian was gone. Selena looked around. Drag marks had been dug into the ground. She followed them, running.

Over a hill and through a grove of trees, she heard something. She stopped still and held her breath, listening. It was to the left. She ran, and then she stopped.

Adrian was being held to the ground. Two vamps were on top of him. Selena snapped a branch off a tree. She ran to the vampires, and kicked one onto his back. She dusted him. The other one got to his feet, and growled.

Selena fought, as Clive had taught her. She sent the demon back to hell.

Adrian lay on the ground. She rushed to him.

"Man," he said, sitting up. "That was something."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah." He held his head in one hand. "They didn't get my throat."

"I didn't even see them coming."

"I know…." He got to his feet. "Well, thanks for saving my life."

He held out his hand. Selena was kneeling in the grass. She looked up at him, then collapsed onto the ground.

"I can't do it anymore. I can't stand it…." She felt worse than she ever had, but she didn't cry.

"Listen," he said. He sat down on one knee. Selena lay on her side, her hand digging into the ground and pulling the grass.

"It won't be so bad," he said. "You're not doing this all by yourself."

"But he's dead…."

"I know." He stroked her hair, and looked across the cemetery. "You've read about Cynthia?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Well, when she died, Clive probably felt like you do now."

"I've read the journal he kept then, but he never talked about her."

"And when Daisy died…. That's just how it is for us. We save the world, and we die."

"But I'm not dead. I have to keep being alive without him here."

His hand rubbed her back. "He told you about the Cruciamentum?"

"He told me that he was against it, and a lot of Watchers were…but the Council made them do it on their Slayers' eighteenth birthdays. And half of the Slayers don't make it…and some of the people in the Council actually make these sadistic wagers."

"And then what happened?"

"He injected me with the stuff to make me weak…and I started feeling really sick…and he told me I was going to be locked in an empty house with a vampire, and I'd have to find some way of killing him that wasn't by physical force. So he found this spell…he said it wasn't practical unless you know you'll only be facing one. It created this energy, but I missed the vampire. We were in this dilapidated house out in the middle of nowhere…."

"Where was Clive?"

"He waited for me, outside, with some people from the Council."

"So, what happened?"

"The spell created a physical energy to hit and destroy the vampire, but when I did it it hit a wall instead, and made this big hole in the wall. Then the vampire dragged me outside, and I passed out."

"When did you wake up?"

"I don't know when…but I was in a cave, tied down, and Clive was there…. I guess he had seen the vampire drag me away and he followed me."

"Didn't the Council members do anything?"

"I don't know…I guess not. I could hardly see…the cave was dark, but there were some torches, and a fire on the floor. There were probably like fifty vampires, and dead human bodies and bones all over the place. You wouldn't believe how it smelled…."

"They killed Clive?"

"Yeah, they killed him."

"How?"

"With a saw."

"What…his head?"

"First they sawed off his arms and legs. Then they held them over the fire…then they sawed off his head. I was lying a few feet away, and I couldn't stop it."

Selena lay on her side, in the grass. "And it was so noisy, all the vampires were shouting, like they were in a frenzy. And they tore my clothes off…and some of them raped me and it went on for so long that I kept falling asleep and waking up again. Then they tied a rope around my neck, and it was strung up on something, so they pulled me up by my neck. And I thought I was going to die. But I just kept passing out, then they'd let it drop and I'd wake up when I hit the ground. Then they'd do it over and over again."

"How did you escape?"

"They tied me up on the wall…and the sun must have been coming up, because most of them left. I guess they went to sleep or something. There was just one left…I guess he was supposed to be watching me. And I just stayed there, and I was naked. And the vampire gave me some water, and like some bread…then I realized that they weren't going to kill me. If they killed me, another Slayer would be Called, but if they just kept me there, then there would be no Slayer. Then the drugs started wearing off, I started to get some of my strength back….

"I broke through the ropes. And the vampire tried to kill me, but I was able to kick him into the fire. Then I found my clothes, but they were all torn up. So I just wrapped them around myself…and I was barefoot…and I found my way out of the cave. It was totally dark, and the floor was slippery. There were all these turns, and I kept banging my head. But I found my way out, and I was in the woods. Then I just followed the road until I got back home."

Selena looked across the grass. The sun was rising, and its rays were visible through the trees.


	7. The Path of Light

Selena lay on the living room floor, in front of the television. Her mother walked into the room.

"Don't you have any regrets?"

"What?"

"I have never heard you say you regret _anything_."

Tabby came in, holding her car keys. "_I'm_ going _thopping_!" she proclaimed. She walked to the bookshelves, where Selena kept her music collection.

"Tan I borrow your Bwondie wecord?"

"No, and talking like that won't make me let you have it."

"Why _can't_ she borrow it?" Mom asked.

"Because I let her borrow my Bee Gees record, and I never saw it again."

"I forgot where I left it!" Tabby shouted.

"So, you can't 'borrow' anything else."

"What _you _don't understand is that _normal_ people don't buy records and then say they're _theirs_ and no one else can _listen_ to them!"

Selena got up and went to the kitchen, passing piles of dirty clothes in the hall. She opened the refrigerator, and heard the front door open and close. She went back to the living room. Walking to the bookshelves, she rifled through her records. _Eat to the Beat_ was gone.

"Mom!" she shouted. Her mother stood at the open front door, wistfully watching Tabby drive away.

"She took my record!"

Mom turned around.

"And there's nothing to eat, either! Why did you let her have the car before you got something for dinner? Where else is she going? Is she going to be out all night?"

Her mother looked at her. "You know, jealousy is a sin," she said, and left the room.

* * *

She didn't walk to Adrian's house until the sun was already down. She was supposed to go at three-ish, and didn't know what he would say. She opened the door and went inside.

"Hello, luv," he said, meeting her in the hall.

"I wasn't here at three."

"Oh, why not?"

"'Cause I don't want to train anymore. I just want to go out and kill them."

He leaned to the side, one arm against the stair rail.

"Listen," he said. "I've been thinking, and I think it would be a good idea for you to take one day off each week. Sundays would work best, because there are fewer vamps out on Sunday. I think having a day of rest will improve your abilities."

He had walked closer to her.

"It won't be so bad," he said. "I'm going to do everything I can to help. To give you the happiest life possible."

She looked down at the floor as her eyes blurred with tears.

"Hey, look at me," he whispered, raising her chin in his hand. She noticed, for the first time, that his eyes were blue; his hair was dark and curly. "It's gonna be all right."

He put his arm around her, but she pushed it away. "I have to leave," she said.

"I'm going with you."

"No, you don't..."

"I'm the Watcher," he said, smiling. "Just do as I say."

They packed their clothes with stakes and went out to slay together.

* * *

The next morning, she woke up at home. She walked up the basement stairs to the kitchen. She opened the door and saw her mother lifting the dog's tail and kneeling down behind her.

"Does her butt look funny to you?"

"Funny ha-ha or funny ironic?"

"Dad was in here alone with her, and when I came in he went like this." Mom stood up and crunched her head down into her shoulder. "And Sniffy had this look on her face like she had just been raped."

"God, Mom…."

"Well, don't you think he would do that if he had one second alone with her?"

Selena walked down the hall to the living room. "You know what I have never heard you say?" Mom asked, following behind. "I have heard you say a _lot_ of _really _mean things, but I have never heard you say, 'I am sorry.' I have _never _heard you say you regret something."

Visions of blood and bones and death came into Selena's mind. "Mom…."

Then, raising one finger towards the ceiling to accentuate her great philosophy, her mother proclaimed, "_Everyone_ should have _something_ they regret!"

"I have to go."

"Where are you going?"

"_Some_where."

She slipped on her shoes and left the house. When she got to Lee Road, she went inside. She found Adrian in the library. She lay down on the parlor sofa to take a nap.

* * *

"Wakey, wakey."

He was shaking her shoulder. Selena forgot where she was before she remembered.

"The Council called," he said. "We've got a situation."

_Percorso di Luce_…Italian for "the light path" or "path of light," was a talisman, a small golden sphere, that had been created by a magician about 500 years ago, and now was in the possession of a vampire in Cleveland. Adrian turned on the television. This regularly-scheduled program had been interrupted by a local news report. It was dark outside, and on the screen Selena saw a dewy-skinned news anchor standing in Public Square, clutching her microphone and shouting frantically above the noise. Behind her, people ran in all directions, and flashing red and blue lights could be seen.

"Chaos in Cleveland tonight!" she shouted. "Violence and looting has been reported. Why this is happening, no one know – "

Suddenly, the screen went black. Then it went fuzzy, and then colors came back. Selena realized that the grayness she was looking at was pavement, and that the camera and fallen and lay sideways on the ground.

Adrian pulled a book from a shelf. He found the entry on _Percorso_, and he and Selena read it to refresh their knowledge. The object had been made simply for the purpose of causing chaos. Touching it to one's skin gave one visions of the future. Ignorance of the future was what gave people hope, so if everyone knew their future but couldn't do anything to change it…no more hope. No more hope, more despair, more chaos.

"We have to find the vamp as soon as we can," Adrian said. "Take the talisman from him, and destroy it."

He looked at her, seriously. "Don't let it touch your skin. In fact, you should probably wear gloves."

"Why? Maybe I want to know things."

"No, you don't. It's curse, not a gift."

She felt herself become a little bit angry. "Not when you have no life outside of killing demons."

"We'll go to Public Square. That's where we'll start looking."

Selena looked at Adrian, and he looked at her. "You would want to know some things," he said, "but not others. But that's not how it works. And there's a reason we're supposed to be ignorant of the future. We were made that way."

"What are you, Church of England?"

"Not really."

"I don't _have_ any gloves."

"We'll stop and buy some."

* * *

They walked out of Higbee's just as the sun was setting. Selena pulled a pair of newly-bought cotton gloves onto her hands and threw the shopping bag in a trash can. She and Adrian crossed the street, all of their senses vigilant.

Public Square was deserted. The sky was black, and there were few cars on the road. The sound of breaking glass came from a distance. They crossed the square, passed Old Stone Church and continued down Superior Street.

Suddenly, they heard a scream. Selena turned, and saw a creature. She only saw him from behind, but what he was was obvious. She ran down the sidewalk, her Watcher running behind.

"Hey," she called when she was close enough. The vampire turned around, his forehead wrinkled and his fangs bared.

"Do you have the…what was it called?"

People ran in all directions away from the demon. Selena pulled a stake from her pocket. "_Percorsy_…do you have it?" she shouted.

The vampire turned and escaped.

"Run after him," Adrian said. "I'll follow in the car."

She kept him in sight and chased him down the road. In the corner of her eye, she saw a guy break a car window with a crowbar, and in front of a gas station, two men pulled a screaming woman to the ground. The vampire ran to the parking lot of a large and exquisite hotel. Its façade was lit and glowed in the moonlight. Limousines and other expensive cars lined the side of the building. The vampire tore through the revolving glass doors into the hotel. Selena calmed down, breathing hard, as Adrian drove into the parking lot.

"Did you see where he went?" he asked, slamming the car door.

"Inside the hotel."

"Let's hope he has it."

They jogged across the pavement and spun through the revolving door. Inside, a uniformed doorman was lying, dead, on a sofa in the hotel lobby. There was no one behind the desk, and no one else in sight.

They crept quietly across the marble floor. The sound of splashing water from a mechanical fountain was all they heard. When they reached the other side of the lobby, they passed through an archway and found themselves in a large dining room. The windows that lined the walls were dark, and reflected the room. Each table was covered with a white cloth. Vases of bouquets and food carts were in place. No people were there, but on the other side of the room, near a grand piano, stood the vampire. Selena saw him toss a brilliant golden ball into the air and catch it. "Go get him," Adrian whispered.

She crept across the room. As soon as she was close enough, she raised her stake. The vamp turned suddenly, and when she tried to kill him, he knocked her to the floor. She stood up, and he lunged at her. She held her stake ready and let him fall into it. He disappeared into a pile of dust.

It was then that she noticed her leg was bleeding. She didn't know how she had hurt it, but blood ran down her shin. The golden ball lay on the floor, feet away. Selena pulled off her gloves, dropped them, and ran to it.

When she picked it up, it vibrated against her skin. The picture in her mind suddenly became stronger than what she saw with her eyes. She saw Adrian sewing up the gash in her leg. She saw them going back to the house, and walking home by herself as the sun rose. The images came faster and faster and piled on top of each other. It was so dark and lonely, but then…something good was going to happen.

"What the hell are you doing?" Adrian shouted. He grabbed the ball away from her. The images in her mind vanished immediately. Adrian held the golden sphere in one hand, then threw it against the wall. It shattered into millions of pieces.

They stood, breathing hard, looking at each other. He had held it for a minute before he threw it.

* * *

It was so strange, knowing the future, but not being able to change it. As she turned the doorknob and walked into Adrian's house, she knew that she would find him in the basement. She knew that he knew, because he had touched the orb, also. And they both knew what would happen between them.

She opened the basement door and descended the creaky wooden stairs. A radio was playing, and as she stepped onto the concrete floor, she saw him. His shirt was off, and he was rubbing a towel over his skin.

"Hey," he said. He smiled at her, and for the first time she noticed how cute she was. His sweaty hair hung into his face.

"Ready to kick my ass?"

"I suppose."

He pulled his T-shirt back over his head, and Selena took off her jacket. They trained in the cool basement. The Slayer's muscles were strong and her reflexes were greater than human. When Adrian stood behind her to stretch her arm into place, she felt his warm body and felt safe with him at her back.

She looked out the window. "Sun's going down."

"Time to go."

They drove to the cemetery. Selena battled her demons, and Adrian helped. When dawn arrived, they drove home.

* * *

Saturday morning, the rays shone through the curtains. The night before, she had come home to the house on Lee Road, eaten a big dinner, taken a shower and gone to sleep. Now she lay in a big, comfortable bed, between soft cotton sheets. She wore only a long striped T-shirt and underpants, and a warm breeze from the open window touched her skin.

"Hello, m'lady," Adrian said, coming into the room. He wore the same clothes he'd had on the night before.

"Have you been up all night?" she asked.

He nodded. "I'll go to sleep around ten," he said. "Since I work nights."

She sat up in bed, and gathered the blankets around her.

He sat down on the mattress. They simply looked at one another, each knowing what the other knew.

"I told you not to touch the bloody thing," he said, with a half-smile. "You never listen to a damn word I say."

He leaned forward, and held her face in his hand. The heat of his body was close to her. Selena placed one hand on his chest. She closed her eyes. His heart beat through the thin fabric of his shirt, and air moved in and out of his lungs. So she was safe.

"We really can't do this," he said. "We shouldn't."

"What, is it like a rule?"

He smiled. "It is, actually. They tell you at the Academy."

He leaned close, and his mouth touched hers. It was warm and soft, and though they didn't love each other yet, she knew they would.

* * *

She turned off the water and examined her hands. They were dry and wrinkled, but all of the dishes were finally washed. She hung the dish towel on the wall.

Amos came up the stairs and into the room. He crossed the floor and backed Selena into the corner by the trash can. "Where's Mob?"

"I don't know!"

"Where's Mob?" His breath was so bad that the smell was almost medicinal. She looked down at the floor to keep herself from having to see his filth and his rotting teeth.

"I told you I don't know!"

"Where is she?"

"Let me out of here!"

"Not till you tell me where Mob is!"

Luckily, their mother's voice carried in from the living room. "But I still have to go to the grocery store, Tabby. We don't have anything for dinner."

"I have to go _now!_ I have to go _now!"_

"Mom's in the living room!" Selena shouted. "Let me out."

Amos turned around and she was able to get away from his filth and his smell.

Then, Tabby's voice again. "…so _stupid_! And I have to tell people that we're _poor_! And we only have one_ car_!"

Selena felt, rather than heard, her father in the living room.

"Don, stop! Stop!" her mother screamed.

Then, during Tabby's wordless wailing, the front door opened and slammed shut.

Selena stood in the kitchen. Her father stomped into the room, saw her, and shouted, "Bitches!" He turned around and stomped out.

There were shouts from the living room, Mom's and his and Amos's. Then Mom walked calmly into the kitchen. "Oh, he is so mean to her," she said, wiping her eyes. She walked back down the hall. "Tabby is going to _remember_ all this, Don! When she's an adult, she's going to _remember_ how you never let her use the car!"

Her father shouted again. Then Mom came back to the kitchen.

"She won't be home till three in the morning!" Selena said. "What are we supposed to eat for dinner?"

"Don't start! Don't you start too!" she sobbed into her Kleenex. "Poor Tabby! Poor Tabby!"

"I just want to eat dinner. God, Mom…."

Mom kept crying. Tabby's dirty clothes were piled on the kitchen floor.

Her father stomped from the living room to the bathroom and slammed the door closed. The sound of the toilet lid lifting up and being thrown back down again carried through the house. "Flush the God! damn! toilet!"

Selena found her tennis shoes, near the door.

"Where are you going?" Mom asked.

"I'm going to find a garbage can to eat out of!"

Selena left the house and crossed the yard to the street.

* * *

The sky was black and the ground was dark. Selena knew every tree, every grave, and every hillside in the 285 acres of land. She ran as fast as she could, flew through the air. The evil beings existed, and she was the one who destroyed them; she was the good. The earth spun through the galaxy, and she was the good.

The man she loved was beside her, the most wonderful, gorgeous, intelligent man in the world. They lay next to each other in the grass, the sky was clear and the stars shone more brilliantly than anything humankind could ever invent.

"It's all for you, Selena," he told her. "The stars shine for you."


	8. Death in the Family

Her knowledge of the future had ended. When Adrian had snatched the orb from her, the last thing she had seen was walking up the path to her house, with a plastic bag in one hand. When she put her hand on the screen door latch, her knowledge of the future ended. She stood still for a minute and took a deep breath. She pulled open the door.

"Where've you been?"

Amos stood in the doorway.

"The store. Let me in."

He snatched the bag from her hand, scraping her skin with his long jagged nails. "Will you stop!" she shouted. She stepped into the living room and pushed the door closed.

"I know you're hide-a some-a," Amos said. "What are you hide-a?"

"It's just food. And I don't want your dirty hands all over it."

He fell to his knees, and then spread his legs out on the floor, groaning. He pulled a package of lunch meat, and then a package of cheese and a loaf of bread out of the bag. He laid it all on the floor.

"I know you're hide-a some-a. I know it's somewhere."

Selena tried to step around him, and he grabbed her leg in his filthy, clammy hand.

"Tell me what you're hide-a."

He had emptied the bag, and spread its contents on the rug. "It's not in here. Tell me where it is."

"What do you think I'm hiding?" she shouted, kicking away his hands.

"Some-a you don't want me to get my hands on. Some-a some-a don't want me to see."

She turned to run from the room, and he lunged across the floor, grabbing her with both arms wrapped around her legs. "Let go!" she shouted, resisting the urge to beat his brains out. "Let go!"

"Where is it? Here?"

Her purse had fallen to the floor, and he grabbed it and unzipped it. Holding it upside down, he shook her wallet, a pack of gum, and a pen to the floor. "I know it's in here some-a," he muttered, unsnapping her wallet.

She walked to the kitchen, her mounting anger ready to spill at her mother. But in the doorway, she stopped.

Tabby stood at the table, holding one of the hamsters in both hands. Mom stood beside her, and tears ran down her face.

"His heart is beating like once every _one_ minute," Tabby said.

"We'll have to call the vet."

Selena tripped forward as Amos came from behind, shoving through the doorway. Mom had crossed the room, and her hand was on the phone when Amos screamed.

He grabbed the receiver and pushed his mother to the floor. "Ow! Amos!" She landed and cried.

"I'm not gonna let you use that phone!" he yelled.

"But Tasty's sick!"

"Tasty is sick, Amos!" Tabby said.

"No."

Mom pulled herself to her feet. Amos clutched the phone receiver with both hands, leaning forward into the wall. "No," he said. "No."

Mom walked from the room and came back with her purse.

"What are you do-a! What are you do-a!" Amos shoved her back to the floor, and then grabbed both of Tabby's hands.

"Stop!" Tabby shouted. "He's squeezing him! Stop!"

Selena reached around her brother's hair and grabbed his neck like she would a vampire's, yanking it suddenly back. He let go and she saw the smashed hamster in Tabby's hands.

"He killed him!" Tabby cried. "He's dead!"

* * *

Mom sat in a living room chair with her Bible and Tasty's dead body on her lap. She rocked slowly back and forth, and Selena didn't know if she was moaning, crying, or praying. Amos sat, on his knees, in front of her.

"Mob," he said, "Mob, Mob, what are you do-a?"

"I'm praying," she sobbed, wiping her nose with a wad of toilet paper.

"Mob, he's already dead."

"Well, he can still come back."

Selena felt the floor sink and took a step back.

"You were just trying to help, right?" Mom asked, looking into Amos's face. "Yesterday, when you squeezed him like that, you were just trying to help."

"Yeah, yeah, I was just try-a to help."

The phone rang, and Mom gathered the dead hamster and her Bible and her toilet paper and walked piously into the kitchen. Selena turned on the TV, and Amos sat in one place.

"Turn that thing off," Mom said, walking back into the room. "Turn that thing off!"

Selena reached forward and turned off the television. "Why - "

"Grandma had a heart attack," Mom said. "She's in the hospital."

Tabby jogged down the stairs with the car keys in her hand.

"Grandma had a heart attack."

Tabby looked into her mother's face. Then, "I need money."

"Grandma had a heart attack. She's in the hospital."

"Are you going to Woodsfield?" Selena asked.

"I need money! I need money!"

Mom walked to the kitchen and Tabby and Selena followed. "I need money!"

"Where's Amos?" Mom whispered. "Is he in the living room?"

Mom reached up to a tea box on the top of the refrigerator, keeping her eyes on the doorway. She found a wad of bills with her hand and gave it to Tabby.

"Are you going to Woodsfield?" Selena asked again, while Tabby counted her cash.

"I guess I'll have to."

"I need more!"

"That's all there _is_, Tabby."

She screamed and ran from the room.

* * *

The bed was a bare mattress covered with Tabby's dirty clothes. Selena stuffed her mother's sweater into a cracked suitcase.

"I'm not going to need _all_ that," Mom said, walking into the room. Selena pulled out the sweater and carried it to the closet. "Well, you said to pack..."

"Have you seen my credit card?" Mom whispered. Selena shook her head.

She heard the front door open and close. Tabby walked into the room, carrying bulging shopping bags. Her eyes widened at the sight of the suitcases. "You're not taking the car, are you?"

"I have to, Tabby."

"No!" she shouted. "No!"

"Have you seen my credit card?"

"No, I haven't seen your _credit_ card!" She ran from the room.

Selena snapped the suitcase closed and carried it across the hall and through the front door. The sun shone into her face and when she crossed the yard to the driveway, she saw her sister sitting in the car.

She pulled open a back door and pushed the suitcase inside. "What are you doing?" she asked. Tabby sat in place and didn't speak.

Mom came out the front door with her purse, and walked to the car. She pulled open Tabby's door. "I have to go now, Tabby."

Tabby pulled the rearview mirror to her face and then turned to Mom. "I'm_ crying_," she said. "I am _crying_."

Mom leaned into the car. "Your grandmother had a heart attack," she said in a low voice. "She's lying in a hos -"

"So!" Tabby shouted. "It's not like she's gonna _die_ if you don't go down there!"

Selena crossed the yard to the front door. When she went inside, it was too dark to see. She tripped over something and heard the dog yelp. "Oh, Sniffy," she muttered, as he ran in a circle and away from her.

She went to the bedroom and saw Tabby's shopping bags. Lunging across the room, she grabbed them and threw them into a corner. Something shiny fell to her feet, and she looked down and saw a credit card on the rug. She picked it up and stuffed it into her pocket.

The front door opened and slammed closed. Tabby appeared in the doorway. "Don't _ever_ say I'm selfish!" she shouted. "Don't _ever_ say I don't do anything for anyone else!"

She ran upstairs. Selena heard the car pull out of the driveway.

* * *

In the middle of the day, the lights were off, and sun shone in the living room windows. The room was a sad grey color. Amos was asleep and Selena was alone. She looked at the black TV screen and tried to decide if watching game shows would make her more, or less, depressed.

Miss Bianca chirped and Selena went to her cage. She opened one window and stuck in her hand, wrenching out the water trough. She pulled the window closed and went to the bathroom. When she returned, she saw the mailman cross the yard. She waited and waited and when she was sure he had gone she opened the front door and pulled the mail from the box. She saw a few ads and some bill and thought, _My god, what if Amos had gotten this?_ The last envelope was covered in Winnie-the-Pooh stickers. It was addressed to her mother in a flowery script.

* * *

"This is, like, typical Tabby, okay?"

Selena sat in one of the Windsor chairs and Adrian sat at the desk, writing in his journal.

"This is what she does constantly: She feels she's been slighted in some way during the day. Like she went to the mall and she only had twenty dollars to spend and some other girl had, like, twenty-one dollars. So...first of all, we're eating dinner, and she considers dinnertime like...she's on a stage. That's when she performs, and everyone is there to watch Tabby and look at Tabby. So she talks and says stupid shit all the way through dinner and everyone is just like hanging on her stupid words. So then dinner's over, and she goes and stands in the doorway, and she tries to get this really hurt expression on her face, and she waits till everyone's looking at her, and then she goes, 'It's not _fair_,' and she flounces out of the room. So then my mom goes running after her going, 'Oh, what's not fair, Tabby? What's not fair?' And then she goes and lays down in the living room and she won't speak. And then finally, five minutes later, she's all teary-eyed and she tells my mom about her horrible experience. And then my mom has to come in and, like, yell at me about it. Like, 'Tabby kept that inside of her the _whole day_. She didn't talk about it the _whole day_.'"

"Were there any vamps at St. Mary's last night?" he asked, without looking up.

"Yeah, two. I killed them."

* * *

Early in the morning, the TV was on, and Selena heard the car pull into the driveway. She went to the kitchen and quietly opened the basement door. She listened and heard nothing. The front door opened and she walked back to the living room.

"Is Amos up?" Mom whispered.

"I don't think so."

Mom set down a plastic bag full of shampoo and stuff. "Grandma had a stroke in the hospital."

"She had a stroke too?"

Mom nodded. "Betsy and Hilda are there now. It's like they're just waiting for her to die or something. It's like Betsy's enjoying it. Like it's a party."

Selena kneeled down and stuck her hand under a chair and pulled out the mail.

"Oh, I wasn't supposed to say that, right?" Mom said when she stood up again. "You didn't want me to say that."

"I was just getting your mail...never mind." She left the room.

In the kitchen, Selena popped open a can of soda and Mom walked into the room tearing open an envelope. She let the Pooh-stickered paper fall to the floor. Selena saw that the trash can was running over and stuffed wet refuse into the plastic bag. She took it out and Sniffy squeezed between her legs to get to the backyard.

When she came back inside, her mother turned over one page of the letter and started on another. "Is this...," she said. "I can't believe this."

"Who's it from?"

"Holly."

"Who?"

"That girl Daniel's been going out with."

Selena stood beside her mother and read: _I'm a very honest person and I'm going to tell you that I think your behavior is incredibly selfish... _

Her eyes traveled down the page: _...going to visit your mother instead of staying here to help with the wedding and making my mom do all the hard work..._

And also: _You have to realize that Daniel isn't your little boy anymore and he's going to be my husband soon. I know him better than you know him and he tells me things about you that I'm not going to repeat to anyone because I'm too nice a person..._

When she came to: _...and if you think we're going to let Amos live with us after you die_, she couldn't read the next three pages and walked away. "Daniel's getting married?"

"Apparently."

"Does she know that Grandma's sick?"

"Well, if Daniel told her I was going down there..."

The phone rang. Selena and her mother looked at it. Then Mom took a few steps and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" She listened and put down the phone. Throwing Holly's letter to the floor, she shouted, "That old bitch! That stupid bitch!" Looking at Selena, "You're enjoying this, aren't you! You're enjoying every second of this!"

* * *

Selena looked through her closet and tried to find something funereal. She carried an eighth-grade Christmas dress downstairs and found her mother and sister in the kitchen.

"I have to be back by six o'clock," Tabby said. "I can _not_ miss Robin's party."

Mom's eyes were red and teary. She looked at Selena. "Are you wearing that?"

"Do I have anything else?"

"Are you_ listening_?" Tabby shouted. "If I'm going to the funeral, I have to be back here by six o'clock. Mom!" she shouted. "Are you_ listening_? You have this real problem with _not listening_."

* * *

The drive was five hours there and five hours back. The sun shone in the car windows and the plastic interior smelled. Selena looked out one window and Tabby looked out the other. Her father drove and her mother sobbed. Amos was too dirty to go and Daniel didn't care to.

* * *

Early in the evening, the car pulled into the driveway. Selena hopped out before the motor was off. On the porch, she saw something sticking out of the mailbox and stuffed it into her sleeve.

The door was unlocked and she went inside. Sniffy met her in the living room. The rug was wet where he had peed. Amos was nowhere to be seen but he could be smelled.

Tabby ran in and up the stairs. Selena pulled the envelope from her sleeve and saw Daniel's handwriting and return address. When her mom came inside, she triumphantly handed the letter to her.

"I guess it's about the wedding," Mom said, sitting down.

"Well, they won't be having it now," Selena told her. "They'll wait till summer or something, won't they?"

"I guess..." She tore open the envelope, looked at the paper, set it down and left the room. Selena picked it up and saw her brother's handwriting.

_Since you made Holly's mom do all the work the least you can do is pay for everything. This is what we need..._

She let the paper fall to the floor.

* * *

She walked in the back door as the sun rose. _Bugger climbing through the window anymore_, she muttered to herself. She heard the front door open and close and then heard her father's car leave.

Walking to the sink, she pulled off her jacket and examined her arm. She hadn't noticed at the cemetery, but during her struggle with a vamp some skin had been scraped and long jagged teeth marks ran from her wrist to her elbow. The kitchen table was covered with dirty dishes and trash, and Sniffy's water bowl had spilled. Selena picked up used Kleenex and dirty paper towels and Band-Aids from the table and dropped them into the trash.

Just then, the ominous sound of Amos's footsteps carried up the stairs. He burst through the basement door. "What are you do-a!" he yelled. "Why are you pick-a up the trash!"

She had a pile of used paper plates in her hand and he grabbed them away. "Amos!" she shouted. Her mother came into the room, stumbling forward with a puffy face and messy hair.

"Mob! Mob, what are you do-a?"

"Are you two fighting?" Mom asked sleepily.

"He grabbed the -" Selena left the room. "Never mind," she muttered.

She kicked off her shoes in the living room and turned on the TV. There was no sound and an American flag fluttered on the screen.

"Mob! Mob!"

"Amos, ow!" and then a scary silence.

Selena ran to the kitchen. Her mother lay on the floor, and Amos kneeled on top of her back. His teeth were bared and his hands were wrapped around her face. Selena grabbed the nearest chair and threw it into his side, but that did nothing. She grabbed the broom and smacked it into his face. "I'm going to keep hitting you until you let go!" She smacked his face again and again. He rolled onto the floor. Mom stood up to her knees, crying. Ten streams of blood, one for each of Amos's fingers, ran down her face. They started at her eyes and dripped from her chin.

"This is all your fault, Selena!" she shouted. "If you hadn't yelled at him...this is all your fault!"

* * *

The Old Stone Church glowed in candlelight. Selena wore the same dress she had worn to the funeral. Her mother stood beside beside her. The scars on her face were red and covered in thick makeup. Tabby stood on her other side, and beside her stood their father.

Daniel and Holly and all their friends were at the altar. "To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health..."

Selena's eyes moved to the balcony, to the stained-glass windows, to the stone walls and the ornate woodwork. "To honor and to cherish..."

When the ceremony was over, a bustle of gowns and tuxes and happy laughter made their way through the halls to the ballroom. Selena sat at a circular table between her mother and her sister. Holly, in her wedding gown, stood in front of the hundreds of guest, clutching a microphone in her hand.

"I would just like to..." Her voice caught and Selena thought,_ God, has she been rehearsing?_ "I would just like to thank my _mom_," she said. "Everything you see in this room is because of _my mom_. Usually, _both_ moms help at weddings. But at this wedding, _my_ mom did it all."


	9. The Council Arrives

Selena zipped her jacket up to her chin as she walked down the sidewalk. When she turned the corner onto Lee Road, she saw that a group of new and expensive cars were parked in the driveway and on the street in front of the house. A nervous feeling entered her stomach. She crossed the front yard and opened the door.

When she stepped inside, she saw a group of men in suits standing near the staircase. They stopped talking and looked at her. She crossed the foyer and walked through the parlor doorway.

Several people stood near the fireplace, and several others occupied the sofa and each chair. Adrian saw her and rose to his feet.

"The Council's here," he said.

"Obviously."

"You must be Miss Stoker," one woman said. Her hair was white and she wore a dark suit. "I'm Mrs. Ward."

"Diana's...mother."

The woman nodded.

"We have some things to do," said Adrian. "Why don't you come back a bit later?"

"Why?" she said. "Why can't I -"

Two men looked at each other in shock and one of the women gasped.

"Just come back a little later," Adrian said, touching her shoulder. Selena turned around and left the house.

Walking down the sidewalk, she saw flowers blooming and squirrels running back and forth across the street. She came to a small park and walked across the grass to a swing set. She pulled the cold chains of one swing into place behind her and sat down. Her tennis shoes kicked at the dust as she rocked back and forth.

She heard laughter but it didn't sound real. She looked to her side and saw a little girl, probably three, propel herself down the slide. She landed on the ground and ran back around to the ladder.

Selena looked around the park. Its grassy slopes covered the block. No one else was there. She walked to the slide. The girl came down again, laughing. Her brown hair was cut in a bob. Selena looked at her face, and thought she was the cutest and prettiest girl she'd ever seen. Her face wasn't perfect, but she wouldn't want it to be any different.

"Where's your mom?" Selena asked.

The girl lay on her back, at the bottom of the slide, and laughed. "She isn't ready yet."

"Is she coming to the park?" Selena asked.

"Yes."

"I think I'll wait with you until she gets here."

"Do you want to wait?" the girl asked. "Or do you want it now?"

"Do I want what now?" Selena asked, smiling.

The girl laughed again and jumped off the slide. She ran fast across the park, across the street, and around a house.

* * *

She returned to Lee Road at dusk and the cars had left. She went inside and found Adrian alone, in the library.

"Are you gonna tell me what's going on?" she asked, taking off her jacket.

"Council business," he said.

"What kind of Council business?"

"Actually, they haven't told me everything yet. I'm sure it's nothing -"

"Deadly?" she finished.

"They're coming back tomorrow," he told her. "Travers was with them."

"Is he like the top guy, or is there someone above him?"

"They sometimes make allusions to a 'Council Head,' but I think that might just be to keep us from rebelling too much."

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she looked into his face. Their mouths came together and they enjoyed a long kiss.

* * *

When Selena walked in the back door, she saw Daniel at the kitchen table. Tabby sat across from him, with a clownish expression, and their mother stood at the sink.

"You know," Daniel said, in his effeminate, Mom-imitating voice, "Holly's parents are really upset about that stunt you pulled at the wedding."

Tabby rollicked with laughter. "What stunt?" Mom asked.

"You know, how you left them with the bill for all the liquor."

"Gee," Selena said, "Holly's parents much be so much better than Daniel's parents!"

Daniel turned to her. "You're just a fucking perverted retard."

Tabby cracked up. "Perverted retard!" she repeated.

Daniel stood from the table and examined his hands. He looked down at the chair he had been sitting in.

"I'm leaving this shithouse." He walked through the living room and out the front door.

"Shithouse!" Tabby exclaimed, laughing.

* * *

The next day, she walked back to Lee Road and saw the cars again. She walked inside and heard voices in the dining room. When she appeared in the doorway, everyone stopped talking. Their expressions were serious and secretive.

Adrian sat at one end of the table. "We're almost done here," he told her. "Why don't you go wait in the library?"

She turned and crossed the foyer and the parlor and sat down in a Windsor chair. She looked at the clock.

An hour later, she heard chairs push back and the voices grew louder and more jolly. Adrian stepped into the room.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Selena asked.

"We'll tell you in a bit."

"This is really...I really hate this..."

"I know," he said. "But it'll be all right."

She stood and crossed the room to a bookcase. "How serious is it?" she asked.

"We'll know soon."

He stood in front of her, and she felt her chin tremble and her eyes fill with tears. "This could be the thing that..."

"No, it won't be," he said. "It'll be all right."

He kissed her mouth and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Bending one knee, she raised her leg. He leaned forward and pressed himself into her. Selena gasped, breathing through her mouth. A little sound came from her throat. She reached down to his pants and pulled down his zipper.

"Oh, dear God!"

She looked into Adrian's eyes. It was a woman's voice. _The carpet_, she thought. _It's so thick you can't hear footsteps..._

Adrian backed away from her. Looking straight ahead, he zipped his pants. Selena wiped her mouth. She walked around him and past Mrs. Ward to the parlor.

The rest of the Council came into the room, talking and laughing. One of the men lit a cigar. Selena snuck into a corner and looked at Mrs. Ward. _Her daughter was a Slayer,_ Selena thought. _She'll understand._

"Well, Adrian," Travers said. "I suppose we've covered everything."

"Sir," Mrs. Ward said. "May I speak to you?"

"Yes."

"Privately," she said, and the room was silent. Selena looked at Adrian. He sat on the sofa, and stared out the window.

* * *

Travers and Mrs. Ward walked into the room. "Adrian," he said, "is it true?"

"Is what true?" someone asked.

"Yes," Adrian said, standing up. "But -"

"You'll have to come with us."

"No," he said. "She can't do this without her Watcher."

"She'll have to. You broke the rules, boy."

Selena rushed across the room and grabbed Adrian's arm. "You can't take him!" she shouted. "I don't have anyone else. He's the only good thing..."

"What did he bloody do?" someone asked.

"Adrian," a skinny man in glasses said, "you didn't shag your Slayer?"

"That language doesn't do anyone any good," snapped Mrs. Ward.

"Come on, boy," Travers said, and Adrian pulled his arm from Selena's grasp.

The group of men and women was between her and him. The front door opened and a cold wind blew inside. Selena ran out into the night. Adrian was being forced into the back seat of a car. "No," she said, crying. "No, you can't..."

"Come along in, dear," said Mrs. Ward. "We've a great deal to discuss."

"No, I won't..."

"You must," she said. "You must be prepared. The Beast is on its way."


End file.
